What potential security risks are associated with not using prepared statements in PHP?

When not using prepared statements in PHP, there is a higher risk of SQL injection attacks, where malicious SQL queries are injected into input fields. This can lead to unauthorized access to databases, data manipulation, and potentially sensitive information leaks. To mitigate this risk, it is crucial to use prepared statements with parameterized queries, which separate SQL logic from user input. 

// Using prepared statements to prevent SQL injection
$stmt = $pdo->prepare("SELECT * FROM users WHERE username = :username AND password = :password");
$stmt->bindParam(':username', $username);
$stmt->bindParam(':password', $password);
$stmt->execute();

Keywords

SQL injection prepared statements PDO mysqli security vulnerabilities

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