Welcome to PHP Security Mastery.

This course will teach you how to protect your PHP applications from web attacks.

By the end of the course, you will be able to implement the right defense techniques against all the different types of attack.

Before you jump into the first chapter, let's see why learning about PHP security is important for web developers.

For web applications, security is not optional

Unfortunately, many web applications on the Internet are not secure. In fact, about 30,000 websites are hacked every day.

The reason is that too many developers consider web security as optional. That is, as something that is not strictly required for a web app to work.

But a web application is not complete if it's not secure against web attacks.

Think about cars. A car could "work" even without safety systems, such as airbags and ABS. However, a car is not complete unless all such features are implemented.

An insecure web application may work inside a local, protected environment. But once it gets deployed on the Internet, it's just a matter of time before it gets targeted and hacked.

Insecure web applications are incomplete (and dangerous) products, that will stop working as soon as the first attack comes. Just like cars without safety systems.

If you want your PHP apps to be complete, your PHP code must be secure.

Learning about PHP security will help your career

As web developers, we have the responsibility to keep the web a safe place as much as we can. It's part of our job.

But writing secure PHP code is important for your career, too.

It's quite obvious, if you think about it:

• If you provide your clients with insecure PHP applications, they will not trust you anymore and you will lose them.
• The less secure your apps are, the less clients you'll get (and the less money you'll make).
• If a client gets in trouble because of your app, you could get in trouble too.

Put simply, making insecure apps will give you a bad reputation.

And with millions of PHP developers out there, you simply cannot afford a bad reputation.

On the other hand, learning how to deliver secure PHP applications will improve your reputation and will make your career grow.

This is why you should care about PHP security as much as you care about your own career.

Now that the importance of PHP security is clear, let's see how this course will help you make your code secure.