What potential security risks could arise from the code snippet's use of user roles for conditional logic?

Using user roles for conditional logic can potentially lead to security risks such as privilege escalation if the roles are not properly validated or if the user input is not sanitized. To mitigate this risk, it is important to validate and sanitize user input before using it in conditional logic to ensure that only authorized users can access certain functionalities.

// Validate and sanitize user input for user role
$user_role = isset($_POST['user_role']) ? filter_var($_POST['user_role'], FILTER_SANITIZE_STRING) : '';

// Implementing fix with validated and sanitized user role
if($user_role === 'admin'){
    // Perform admin-specific actions
} elseif($user_role === 'user'){
    // Perform user-specific actions
} else {
    // Handle unauthorized access
    echo "Unauthorized access";
}