What is the potential security risk of including a PHP file from an external server?

Including a PHP file from an external server can pose a security risk because the external server could potentially serve malicious code, leading to security vulnerabilities on your own server. To mitigate this risk, it is recommended to download the external PHP file to your server and include it locally. 

<?php
// Download the external PHP file to a local directory
$externalFile = file_get_contents('http://example.com/external_file.php');
file_put_contents('/local/directory/external_file.php', $externalFile);

// Include the locally stored PHP file
include '/local/directory/external_file.php';
?>

Keywords

PHP include external server security risk code injection

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