What potential security risks are present in the PHP script provided, especially in relation to user input handling and session management?

The potential security risks in the provided PHP script include the lack of input validation, which can lead to SQL injection attacks, and the insecure session management, which can result in session hijacking. To mitigate these risks, it is important to sanitize user input and use secure session handling techniques. 

// Fix for input validation and secure session management

// Sanitize user input to prevent SQL injection
$username = mysqli_real_escape_string($connection, $_POST['username']);
$password = mysqli_real_escape_string($connection, $_POST['password']);

// Start secure session
session_set_cookie_params(0, '/', '', true, true);
session_start([
    'cookie_lifetime' => 86400,
    'cookie_secure' => true,
    'cookie_httponly' => true,
    'cookie_samesite' => 'Strict'
]);

Keywords

SQL injection Cross-site scripting (XSS) Session fixation Input validation Escaping user input

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