API security best practices

 API with a focus on security best practices:

Key Security Practices Included:

1. Input Validation and Sanitization: All inputs are validated and sanitized to prevent SQL injection and other attacks.
2. Prepared Statements: All database queries use prepared statements to avoid SQL injection.
3. Password Hashing: Passwords are hashed using password_hash() and verified using password_verify().
4. Token-Based Authentication: JSON Web Tokens (JWTs) are used for secure API authentication.
5. Error Hiding: Error details are logged but not exposed to users in production.
6. Strict Content-Type Header: Ensures only JSON payloads are processed.
7. Rate Limiting and Throttling: Optional mechanisms to prevent abuse.
8. Validation for IDs: Integer inputs (like user_id or exam_id) are explicitly validated.