Wiz discloses severe PHP core vulnerabilities and publishes a brief
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Wiz Research discovered multiple severe memory safety vulnerabilities in the PHP core that underpins about 70% of websites worldwide, classified under two identifiers CVE-2026-109618 and CVE-2026-109619, with a highest CVSS score of 9.2, and nearly all PHP versions including 5.4 are affected by at least one of them. PHP released patches on October 21, 2026. Wiz combined the vulnerabilities into the php2shell attack chain and demonstrated unauthenticated attacks on WordPress, Drupal and Joomla. Wiz also published the PHP2Shell urgent threat brief, explaining the vulnerability discovery and responsible disclosure process, how AI-driven security research found them, and mitigation options for systems that cannot be patched immediately.
Generated by AI from reports · Updated 8 days ago
Progress timeline
- WebAI Threat Watch (aithreat.io)· Media coveragePHP2Shell : l'IA est à l'origine de la découverte de la faille qui ébranle le Web(opens the original post in a new tab)
- Wiz ResearchSelectedPHP2Shell: Wiz uses AI to find a severe RCE vulnerability affecting 70% of websites on the internet
Wiz Research found multiple severe memory safety vulnerabilities in the PHP core that underpins 70% of the world's websites, and PHP released patches on October 21, 2026. The vulnerabilities are classified into two CVEs (CVE-2026-109618, CVE-2026-109619), with a maximum CVSS of 9.2, and almost all PHP versions, including 5.4, are affected by at least one of them. Wiz combined the vulnerabilities into the php2shell attack chain and demonstrated unauthenticated remote code execution on WordPress, Drupal and Joomla, as well as the ability to read sensitive data such as passwords and tokens in process memory, with exploitation not depending on flaws in application code. These defects have existed for more than a decade, and the exploitation threshold was previously close to the limit of human researchers; the authors said that with Wiz Atlas, Gemini 4 Argon and GPT-5.6 Sol, one researcher completed in a week work that previously took top teams months.
- Wiz ResearchPHP2Shell emergency threat brief: Wiz Research analyzes PHP unauthenticated RCE vulnerabilities
Wiz Research released an emergency threat brief on PHP2Shell, explaining two critical PHP vulnerabilities it discovered and responsibly disclosed that can lead to unauthenticated RCE. The vulnerabilities affect widely used PHP versions (including older versions that no longer receive patches) and could affect WordPress, Drupal and MediaWiki. The brief also covers the discovery process of AI-driven security research and mitigation options for systems that cannot be patched immediately.
Related discussion
- XX @gdblearn about php2shell and the general emerging security landscape:(opens the original post in a new tab)
- Older than 72 hours · Not included in the 72-hour figures
- X@girl_coder_MV · The ElementalistIf you code in PHP, this may be helpful 🙃 https://www.wiz.io/blog/php2shell-php-rce #code #PHP #PHP2Shell #WebDev…(opens the original post in a new tab)
- X@InfraWatchHQ · Infra WatchWiz confirms working pre-authentication remote code execution against WordPress and Drupal via PHP2Shell, so CMS sites…(opens the original post in a new tab)
1 comments·Oct 23 03:33Collect
- X@bynar_io · bynarioYou've probably seen plenty about PHP2Shell by now: two critical PHP vulnerabilities, potential unauthenticated RCE, an…(opens the original post in a new tab)
2 likes·Oct 23 00:33Collect
- X@AIEngineerHub · Henri Hubert🚨 𝗣𝗛𝗣𝟮𝗦𝗵𝗲𝗹𝗹: 𝗔 𝗻𝗲𝘄 𝗰𝘆𝗯𝗲𝗿𝘀𝗲𝗰𝘂𝗿𝗶𝘁𝘆 𝗻𝗶𝗴𝗵𝘁𝗺𝗮𝗿𝗲? Germany’s Federal Office for Information Security (BSI) has issued an urge…(opens the original post in a new tab)
- X@samilaiho · Sami LaihoPHP2Shell: AI uncovers critical RCE vulnerabilities affecting 70% of the Internet https://www.wiz.io/blog/php2shell-php…(opens the original post in a new tab)
- X@wesselvk · Wessel van KeulenSource: Wiz Research, OpenAI and PHP, 21 Oct https://www.wiz.io/blog/php2shell-php-rce(opens the original post in a new tab)
- X@donder172 · sam@TimmyTangoVT @Pirat_Nation No, this is much more recent. And so much worse. https://www.wiz.io/blog/php2shell-php-rce(opens the original post in a new tab)
- X@elhackernet · elhacker.NETDemonstrations of PHP2Shell with Wordpress, Joomla, and Drupal: https://www.wiz.io/blog/php2shell-php-rce WordPress Pr…(opens the original post in a new tab)
715 likes · 4 comments·Oct 23 04:34Collect
- WebAI Threat Watch (aithreat.io)PHP2Shell : l'IA est à l'origine de la découverte de la faille qui ébranle le Web(opens the original post in a new tab)
- X@NewsLesender · News Lesender@Loewin_mit_Herz @KI_Agent Nachzulesen hier https://www.wiz.io/blog/php2shell-php-rce es wurde geuielt gesucht und wie…(opens the original post in a new tab)
3 likes · 3 comments·Oct 22 20:34Collect
- X@k1oku · 奥 慶一(Keiichi OKU) ☮🇯🇵🇺🇳 كييتشي أوكوPHP2Shell: AI discovers a critical remote code execution (RCE) vulnerability affecting 70% of the internet https://www.wiz.io/blog/php2shell-php-rce(opens the original post in a new tab)
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