PHP MySQL Security Improvements UPDATED - php

Question

I want to send form data to a server online.
At the moment i'm using xampp so the username and password are 'root' and ''
If I was to put this online I would have to put my hosting login details. Is that correct?
Clearly that would be a very serious security issue as anybody could see it written in my process file.
I have found a lot of info about prepared statements to prevent SQL injection but nothing about how to hide username/password, which I would have thought would be a bigger thing.
Am I missing something essential about usernames/passwords?
(I am not trying to create user login accounts, just basic newsletter signup)
<?
// database details
$servername = 'localhost';
$username = 'username';
$password = 'password';
$database = 'database';
// form submission
$email=$_POST['email'];
// connect to database
mysql_connect($servername, $username, $password) or die(mysql_error());
mysql_select_db($database) or die(mysql_error());
mysql_query("INSERT INTO newsletter VALUES ('$email')");
Print "Your information has been successfully added to the database.";
mysql_close();
?>
Update:
Ok, so I have since included prepared statements into my code, and it now looks like this:
<?php
// database details
$servername = 'localhost';
$username = 'username';
$password = 'password';
$database = 'database';
// form submission
$email=$_POST['email'];
// Create connection
$conn = new mysqli($servername, $username, $password, $database);
// Check connection
if ($conn->connect_error) {
die("Connection failed: " . $conn->connect_error);
}
// prepare and bind
$stmt = $conn->prepare("INSERT INTO scenariosubmission (Email) VALUES (?)");
$stmt->bind_param("s", $email);
$stmt->execute();
echo "New records created successfully";
$stmt->close();
$conn->close();
?>
My code should prevent SQL injection
So what I want to know is if I was to enter my username password database and upload this to the server, would those details be safe if I uploaded them like any other web page to public_html?

Answer 1

So when you move this to your hosting, the code will be something like this:
<?
// database details
$servername = 'localhost';
$username = 'your userid with your hosting company';
$password = 'hosting company provided mysql password';
$database = '';
Will that be a big security issue of everyone being able to see your MySQL password?
Not really, because only you and the people working for the hosting company should be able to see the PHP code. And the people working at the hosting company will have the root password to the database anyway, so they could look at what you have in the database without your particular mysql credentials.
But using <? rather than <?php may cause your code to be transmitted instead of run on some server setups. So if you upload it that way, initially some users may end up seeing the passwords you have in the code before you figure it out and fix it.
Another more serious issue than this is if the hosting company has you using phpmyadmin over http rather than https, because every time you login to it your credentials will be transmitted in plain text.

Answer 2

Well there a couple of things in play here.
Since you mentioned SQLi and considering you're using PHP + MySQL, you should look into doing prepared statements, by using the prepare(), bind() and execute() functions.
Second, even before thinking about putting something online or using SQL properly is to change the default username/password.
Now if you want to put your server online, I'm assuming you have a server or the credentials to someplace where you can ran either XAMP or configure its services by hand. Anyway, those credentials are the Database's, which are different from your host server login credentials.
As long as that .php file is properly secured on the server, it's common practice to have the username/password there in the file.