This series walks you through the process of building a web application from scratch while simultaneously examining one of the most common and lethal security flaws: cross-site scripting (XSS).

By the end of this series, you will have not only a completely functional online application but also a thorough understanding of how to avoid XSS vulnerabilities and other typical web application security challenges.

Cross-site scripting (XSS) is one of the most common and dangerous web vulnerabilities, allowing attackers to inject malicious scripts into trusted websites. In this guide, you’ll learn not just how to build a signup form, but how to do it securely-laying the groundwork for XSS prevention from the start

In this first part of the series, we will walk through the process of setting up XAMPP as our local web server environment for web development.

XAMPP is a free and open-source platform that provides an easy way to set up Apache, MySQL, PHP, and Perl, all in one package, allowing you to create and test web applications locally on your machine.

We will focus on:

1. What XAMPP is and why it’s used