PHP helps you to quickly build big applications and many times, its easy to neglect the security matter. Its easy to believe that security breaches could not happen to your software. But what if it does happen? For this reason, security in your applications should be kept in consideration from the beginning.

On the heels of several several security issues with PHP and a few not-to-be-named pieces of popular software, DevShed has a new article that might help you think a bit more about you and your code - Reconsidering PHP variables.

They cover a listing of a few simple things that you can do to help keep your code safer, including: Checking the number of POST, GET and COOKIE variables handled by your applications, Checking the variable content length, and Checking a 'secret key' inside one variable.

With all of the major PHP applications that are out there in use, it's a wonder that something like this hadn't come up sooner. It's also good to know, however, that articles like this are making people aware of some of the issues...