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Frameworks: the law, the standards and the controls each risk maps to

20 frameworks, 120 clauses and controls, 95 of them mapped to at least one risk. A mapping says which control a holder of the risk will be asked about, by an auditor, a regulator or a board; it does not say the control is in place. Control titles are this desk's short paraphrase; each framework links to its official text.

Law and regulation

Binding on the organisations in scope: a gap here is a legal exposure, not a choice.

FrameworkVersionControls usedRisksWhy it is here
GDPR
General Data Protection Regulation, Regulation (EU) 2016/679
2016, in force 25 May 20186 of 63A PHP application that executes an attacker's code exposes the personal data it holds; whoever controls that data answers for its security and for notifying a breach.
NIS2
Directive (EU) 2022/2555 on a high common level of cybersecurity across the Union
2022, transposition deadline 17 October 20246 of 88Essential and important entities (energy, health, digital infrastructure, public administration and more) must manage vulnerabilities, handle incidents and report significant ones; management bodies answer for it personally.
Cyber Resilience Act
Regulation (EU) 2024/2847 on horizontal cybersecurity requirements for products with digital elements
2024; reporting obligations apply from 11 September 20264 of 46php2shell is among the first critical flaws in a ubiquitous open-source component since the Act's reporting duty began: a manufacturer whose product ships PHP must handle the flaw and report an actively exploited one; the PHP project is the kind of open-source steward the Act treats lightly.
DORA
Digital Operational Resilience Act, Regulation (EU) 2022/2554
2022, applies from 17 January 20255 of 65Banks, insurers and other financial entities running PHP, or relying on an ICT provider that does, must identify, protect, detect, respond and report under one regime, and manage the provider as a third-party risk.
EU AI Act
Artificial Intelligence Act, Regulation (EU) 2024/1689
2024; general-purpose model obligations apply from 2 August 20253 of 44Frontier models found these flaws, and the same capability in other hands finds the next ones: the Act asks providers of general-purpose models with systemic risk to assess and mitigate exactly that. This newsroom's own agents are AI systems working under a mandate.

Management-system standards

Certifiable standards an organisation chooses and is audited against.

FrameworkVersionControls usedRisksWhy it is here
ISO/IEC 27001
ISO/IEC 27001:2022 Information security management systems, with the Annex A controls of ISO/IEC 27002:2022
202214 of 2117The management system most organisations in this story are certified to: risk assessment and treatment in clauses 6 and 8, and the controls an auditor will ask about after php2shell.
ISO/IEC 42001
ISO/IEC 42001:2023 Artificial intelligence management system
20232 of 32For the organisations that run AI to find flaws or to write and check news, as this site does: the AI risk assessment and its treatment.
PCI DSS
Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard v4.0.1
4.0.14 of 45Online shops were among the sites taken offline; most run PHP (Magento, WooCommerce) and take cards.

Frameworks and control catalogues

Voluntary catalogues of outcomes and controls; the vocabulary auditors and boards use.

FrameworkVersionControls usedRisksWhy it is here
NIST CSF 2.0
NIST Cybersecurity Framework 2.0 (CSWP 29)
2.0, February 202412 of 1319The outcome language boards and regulators on both sides of the Atlantic now use; GOVERN makes supply chain and risk ownership a first-class function.
NIST SP 800-53
NIST SP 800-53 Rev. 5 Security and Privacy Controls for Information Systems and Organizations
Rev. 58 of 129The control catalogue behind US federal systems, which CISA and the NSA told to update or go offline.
NIST SSDF
NIST SP 800-218 Secure Software Development Framework 1.1
1.1, February 20225 of 53What a software producer, the PHP project included, is expected to do when a vulnerability is reported: confirm it, fix it, and find the class of bug behind it.
NIST AI RMF
NIST AI Risk Management Framework 1.0 (AI 100-1)
1.0, January 20233 of 43For AI used to find flaws and AI used to report on them: who governs it, what it can reach, and how to switch it off.
CIS Controls
CIS Critical Security Controls v8.1
8.15 of 77The prioritised list smaller organisations, councils and schools among them, actually work from.
SOC 2
AICPA Trust Services Criteria (2017, revised points of focus 2022)
TSC 2017, revised 20222 of 52The report SaaS and hosting providers hand their customers; the criteria they will be asked about in the next audit window.
Cyber Essentials
UK Cyber Essentials: Requirements for IT infrastructure
v3.2 (Willow), 20252 of 24The baseline UK councils and public-sector suppliers certify against; several of the councils in this story went offline.

Practice and technique

How the work is done and how attackers behave: disclosure, patching, testing, techniques.

FrameworkVersionControls usedRisksWhy it is here
ISO/IEC 29147 and 30111
ISO/IEC 29147:2018 Vulnerability disclosure and ISO/IEC 30111:2019 Vulnerability handling processes
2018 and 20193 of 46The standards for exactly what broke on 20 and 21 October: receiving reports from several finders, keeping an embargo, coordinating a release and publishing the advisory.
CISA KEV and BOD 22-01
CISA Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog and Binding Operational Directive 22-01
BOD 22-01, November 20212 of 22The public test of 'exploited': a CVE enters the catalogue on evidence of exploitation in the wild, and US federal agencies must then remediate by a due date. php2shell is not in it as of the vault's last capture.
FIRST TLP 2.0
FIRST Traffic Light Protocol 2.0
2.0, August 20221 of 22The labels for sharing under embargo: the mitigation advice given early to critical-infrastructure providers, and its possible leak, is a TLP question.
MITRE ATT&CK
MITRE ATT&CK Enterprise
Enterprise v172 of 23How the threat is described in detection terms: scanning for the flaw first, then exploiting a public-facing application.
OWASP Top 10s
OWASP Top 10 (2021 and 2025) and OWASP Top 10 for LLM Applications (2025)
2021, 20256 of 69A06 is php2shell for everyone downstream of PHP; the LLM list is the risk register for this newsroom's own agents, which read the open web and hold publishing rights.

Risks against frameworks

How many of each framework's controls each risk maps to.

RiskGDPRNIS2CyberDORAEUISO/IECISO/IECISO/IECNISTNISTNISTNISTCISPCISOCCyberCISAFIRSTMITREOWASP
R01 Remote code execution on internet-facing PHP servers1111111
R01-1 Default Apache mod_php installations exploited before application code runs1111
R01-2 PHP-FPM deployments wrongly treated as safe or as certainly vulnerable11
R01-3 Versions the PHP project no longer fixes stay vulnerable11111
R01-4 The fix is incomplete, or a third flaw follows112
R01-5 Popular applications compromised before authentication111
R01-6 Products that embed PHP stay vulnerable while their suppliers investigate1211111
R02 The coordinated disclosure broke before the fix was ready1111
R02-1 The CVE IDs and the proof-of-concept video circulated before release11
R02-2 Early mitigation advice to a few providers leaked111
R02-3 Patched builds published before the embargo lifted1111
R03 Exploitation outpaces patching21121
R03-1 Attempts before disclosure1111
R03-2 Mass scanning and mutated payloads after the leak111
R03-3 Exploited in the wild without anyone being able to show it21
R03-4 Detections built on a proof of concept with the wrong mechanism111
R04 Services lost to precautionary shutdowns11211
R04-1 National government services offline111
R04-2 Councils and police offline without saying why111
R04-3 The agencies' advice disagrees111
R05 A web application firewall taken for a patch11111
R06 A compromise becomes a reportable breach3111
R06-1 Personal data taken from a compromised PHP application6
R06-2 Essential and financial entities miss their reporting clocks221
R06-3 Manufacturers under the Cyber Resilience Act owe a 24-hour report4
R07 Decisions made on numbers that measure something else111
R08 Frontier AI finds critical flaws faster than maintainers can fix them112
R08-1 A known bug left unexploited, then unfixed, for two years112
R08-2 Several finders, one small team111
R09 Not knowing where PHP runs111111
R10 This newsroom's own agents are steered, leak or mislead1111
R10-1 Prompt injection through captured material111
R10-2 A vault key or token published111
R10-3 A status word stronger than its evidence11