What potential security risks should be considered when connecting to external databases in PHP?

When connecting to external databases in PHP, potential security risks include SQL injection attacks, unauthorized access to sensitive data, and data manipulation. To mitigate these risks, it is important to use parameterized queries and validate user input. 

// Establish a secure connection to the external database using PDO
$dsn = 'mysql:host=localhost;dbname=mydatabase';
$username = 'username';
$password = 'password';

try {
    $pdo = new PDO($dsn, $username, $password);
    $pdo->setAttribute(PDO::ATTR_ERRMODE, PDO::ERRMODE_EXCEPTION);
} catch (PDOException $e) {
    echo 'Connection failed: ' . $e->getMessage();
}

Keywords

SQL injection PDO prepared statements data validation secure coding practices

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