|  | Posted by Ben on 09/14/05 22:33 
Dan Baker wrote:
 > Why is using $_REQUEST a security issue?  You know every value in the entire
 > array came from the end-user, and needs to be validated somehow.  If your
 > code is written so the end-user can send this data to you via a
 > POST/GET/COOKIE, why not use $_REQUEST?
 
 On the one hand, you can't trust anything that came from the client, but
 on the other if you're expecting a variable to come from a cookie and
 instead it comes from a get you know something weird is going on, but
 using $_REQUEST you'll be oblivious.  You ought to know where your
 variable values are coming from, $_REQUEST hides this.
 
 In older versions of PHP4 this is even more of an issue since $_FILE
 information was also included in $_REQUEST.  If someone uploades a file
 while including conflicting information from another source (cookie,
 post, get) this could lead to all sorts of problems.
 
 And the lazy guy answer...  typing $_POST and $_GET is faster than
 typing $_REQUEST ;-).
 
 - Ben
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