What potential pitfalls should be considered when handling form data in PHP?

One potential pitfall when handling form data in PHP is the risk of SQL injection attacks if user input is not properly sanitized. To prevent this, always use prepared statements or parameterized queries when interacting with a database to avoid malicious code execution. Additionally, validate and sanitize user input to prevent cross-site scripting (XSS) attacks. 

// Example of using prepared statements to handle form data securely
$pdo = new PDO('mysql:host=localhost;dbname=database', 'username', 'password');

$stmt = $pdo->prepare('INSERT INTO users (username, email) VALUES (:username, :email)');
$stmt->bindParam(':username', $_POST['username']);
$stmt->bindParam(':email', $_POST['email']);
$stmt->execute();

Keywords

SQL injection cross-site scripting data validation sanitization prepared statements

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