How to Secure User Data in PHP for Multiplayer Game Login System?
I've been researching this but I'm integrating two systems and Currently developing a multiplayer game using PHP and MySQL, and security has become a major concern as I want to protect user information during login and registration. The previous implementation used plain text passwords, which I’ve replaced with password hashing using `password_hash()`, but I’m unsure about the best practices for securely storing user sessions and managing cookies. I’ve implemented the following code for password hashing: ```php if ($_SERVER['REQUEST_METHOD'] === 'POST') { $username = $_POST['username']; $password = $_POST['password']; $hashedPassword = password_hash($password, PASSWORD_DEFAULT); // Save $hashedPassword to the database } ``` For sessions, I set them up like this: ```php session_start(); $_SESSION['username'] = $username; ``` However, I’ve read that using default session handling isn’t the safest route. I want to enhance security by using secure cookies and regenerating session IDs. Here’s what I’m trying: ```php session_regenerate_id(true); setcookie('PHPSESSID', session_id(), [ 'expires' => time() + 3600, 'path' => '/', 'domain' => 'yourdomain.com', 'secure' => true, 'httponly' => true, 'samesite' => 'Strict' ]); ``` Despite these steps, I still worry about session hijacking and XSS attacks. I’ve also implemented input validation using prepared statements with PDO to prevent SQL injection, yet I feel like I might be missing something crucial in terms of securing data in transit. What additional measures should I consider implementing for enhanced security? Are there specific libraries or patterns in PHP that could help mitigate these vulnerabilities? For context: I'm using Php on CentOS. Am I missing something obvious? For context: I'm using Php on Debian.