PHP 7: Real World Application Development

Safeguarding the PHP session

The PHP session mechanism is quite simple. Once the session is started using session_start() or the php.ini session.autostart setting, the PHP engine generates a unique token that is, by default, conveyed to the user by way of a cookie. On subsequent requests, while the session is still considered active, the user's browser (or equivalent) presents the session identifier, again usually by way of a cookie, for inspection. The PHP engine then uses this identifier to locate the appropriate file on the server, populating $_SESSION with the stored information. There are tremendous security concerns when the session identifier is the sole means of identifying a returning website visitor. In this recipe, we will present several ...