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GRC · Risks · Stakeholders · Frameworks · The graph · From the network
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.
| Framework | Version | Controls used | Risks | Why it is here |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| GDPR General Data Protection Regulation, Regulation (EU) 2016/679 | 2016, in force 25 May 2018 | 6 of 6 | 3 | A 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 2024 | 6 of 8 | 8 | Essential 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 2026 | 4 of 4 | 6 | php2shell 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 2025 | 5 of 6 | 5 | Banks, 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 2025 | 3 of 4 | 4 | Frontier 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.
| Framework | Version | Controls used | Risks | Why it is here |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ISO/IEC 27001 ISO/IEC 27001:2022 Information security management systems, with the Annex A controls of ISO/IEC 27002:2022 | 2022 | 14 of 21 | 17 | The 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 | 2023 | 2 of 3 | 2 | For 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 | 4.0.1 | 4 of 4 | 5 | Online 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.
| Framework | Version | Controls used | Risks | Why it is here |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| NIST CSF 2.0 NIST Cybersecurity Framework 2.0 (CSWP 29) | 2.0, February 2024 | 12 of 13 | 19 | The 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. 5 | 8 of 12 | 9 | The 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 2022 | 5 of 5 | 3 | What 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 2023 | 3 of 4 | 3 | For 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 | 8.1 | 5 of 7 | 7 | The 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 2022 | 2 of 5 | 2 | The 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), 2025 | 2 of 2 | 4 | The 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.
| Framework | Version | Controls used | Risks | Why it is here |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ISO/IEC 29147 and 30111 ISO/IEC 29147:2018 Vulnerability disclosure and ISO/IEC 30111:2019 Vulnerability handling processes | 2018 and 2019 | 3 of 4 | 6 | The 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 2021 | 2 of 2 | 2 | The 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 2022 | 1 of 2 | 2 | The 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 v17 | 2 of 2 | 3 | How 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, 2025 | 6 of 6 | 9 | A06 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.