CISA warns of PHP2Shell RCE flaws
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CISA urges immediate patching of two critical unauthenticated RCE vulnerabilities affecting all internet-facing PHP installations, dubbed php2shell.
CISA has issued an alert urging organizations to immediately patch two critical vulnerabilities in PHP, tracked as CVE-2026-109618 and CVE-2026-109619 and collectively dubbed "php2shell." These flaws allow unauthenticated remote code execution and affect all PHP installations that serve web requests, making them a broad concern given PHP's widespread use as a web application language and embedded component in other software. As of publication, CISA has not observed active exploitation, but given the severity and breadth of affected systems, the risk of future exploitation is considered high.
Organizations are advised to update to PHP versions 8.5.12, 8.4.27, 8.3.36, or 8.2.35 to remediate the vulnerabilities. CISA notes that PHP 8.1 and older versions no longer receive security updates, and organizations running these legacy versions should take affected systems offline until they can be upgraded or otherwise protected. A web application firewall may offer interim mitigation for systems that cannot be patched immediately.
Defenders should inventory all systems running PHP, including those where PHP is a hidden or embedded component of other software, and prioritize patching for internet-facing systems. CISA recommends monitoring for suspicious activity such as PHP worker processes spawning shell processes or downloading external tools, which would indicate post-exploitation activity consistent with these vulnerabilities.
Mentioned in this report
Source reporting: https://www.cisa.gov/news-events/alerts/2026/10/21/critical-vulnerabilities-php-require-immediate-patching
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