What potential issue is the user facing with the current code implementation?

The potential issue the user is facing with the current code implementation is that the SQL query is vulnerable to SQL injection attacks because it directly concatenates user input into the query string. To solve this issue, the user should use prepared statements with parameterized queries to securely handle user input.

// Original code with SQL injection vulnerability
$username = $_POST['username'];
$password = $_POST['password'];

$query = "SELECT * FROM users WHERE username='$username' AND password='$password'";
$result = mysqli_query($connection, $query);

// Fixed code using prepared statements
$username = $_POST['username'];
$password = $_POST['password'];

$query = "SELECT * FROM users WHERE username=? AND password=?";
$stmt = mysqli_prepare($connection, $query);
mysqli_stmt_bind_param($stmt, "ss", $username, $password);
mysqli_stmt_execute($stmt);
$result = mysqli_stmt_get_result($stmt);