Source · advisory · primary · captured

Critical Vulnerabilities in PHP Require Immediate Patching

US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) · https://www.cisa.gov/news-events/alerts/2026/10/21/critical-vulnerabilities-php-require-immediate-patching · published 2026-10-21 · added by collector-gov · slug cisa-alert-php-20261021

CISA Alert, Release Date October 21, 2026. Names CVE-2026-109618/109619 'php2shell'. 'Organizations that cannot update immediately, or that continue to use PHP 8.1 or earlier unsupported versions, should take PHP-based systems offline until they can be patched or updated.' CISA 'has not observed exploitation ... as of the time of publication'. Not in KEV as of catalog 2026.10.21.

What it says, as the collector read it

CISA Alert: Critical Vulnerabilities in PHP Require Immediate Patching

URL: https://www.cisa.gov/news-events/alerts/2026/10/21/critical-vulnerabilities-php-require-immediate-patching. "Release Date October 21, 2026" (no time given).
Captured 2026-10-22T08:13:53Z with Playwright. Plain curl to www.cisa.gov returns 403 (Akamai), but the headless browser gets 200. The CISA home page (cisa-home) lists it at the top as "OCT 21, 2026 ALERT".
Exact advice, verbatim:
"CISA strongly urges organizations to immediately patch the recently disclosed critical vulnerabilities in PHP, CVE-2026-109618 and CVE-2026-109619."
"Organizations should immediately update to PHP 8.5.12, 8.4.27, 8.3.36, or 8.2.35"
"Identify and inventory systems running any version of PHP across your organization."
"Apply the patch immediately, prioritizing internet-facing systems."
"Organizations that cannot update immediately, or that continue to use PHP 8.1 or earlier unsupported versions, should take PHP-based systems offline until they can be patched or updated."
"A web application firewall may provide some protection until systems are updated or patched."
"Monitor for suspicious activity, including PHP worker processes launching shells or downloading tools."
Exploitation: "While CISA has not observed exploitation of these vulnerabilities as of the time of publication".
The CISA offline advice is the most absolute ("should take ... offline"), and it explicitly covers EOL 8.1 and older. No emergency directive found (see cisa-kev-json).

Claims that cite it

Claim	Who says it	Status	Primary	Sources
A web application firewall may provide some protection until systems are patched Swiss BACS: 'Even a web application firewall alone is not sufficient.' Cloudflare says its rules blocked the traffic it saw and that attackers mutated payloads to get past them.	CISA	disputed	3/3	CISA BACS Cloudflare
CISA has not observed exploitation; neither CVE is in the Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog Catalog version 2026.10.21 fetched 2026-10-22T08:15Z, 1,754 entries. A point-in-time negative finding.	CISA	confirmed	3/3	CISA CISA CVE record
Organisations that cannot update immediately, or that run PHP 8.1 or older, should take PHP-based systems offline	CISA	confirmed	1/1	CISA

Events that cite it

When	Event	Time is
2026-10-21	CISA alert 'Critical Vulnerabilities in PHP Require Immediate Patching': take systems offline if you cannot update. NSA press release 'PHP2Shell'. UK NCSC alert. CCCS AL26-026. CERT-FR ALE-014. ACN AL07/261021. Cloudflare, Wiz, Calif, the PHP Foundation and Daubois publish their accounts.	stated

Agency rows from this source

CISA: offline yes

Exploitation signals from this source

2026-10-21: 'CISA has not observed exploitation of these vulnerabilities as of the time of publication.' Neither CVE is in the Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog (vers

The bytes

capture 20261022T081353Z · HTTP 200 · https://www.cisa.gov/news-events/alerts/2026/10/21/critical-vulnerabilities-php-require-immediate-patching

headers.json 30fb6764c792111ac226e0fb1ca4f574f5e2faadfc10d2150ae9dfa35ea0858d 2,825 bytes
page.html be6b410fc0da16de2c1b96dc3132a195632d636467ab7c859c343494fa7accfa 53,868 bytes
provenance.json ea18f4dbc502d3c87b5d9a6c83d49ff128544ad074140c502f37abff350d9f8a 1,110 bytes
rendered.html 0e3e08492a52d48e8ccb18f836df984af4f15f251f6089697676b540458b3371 78,116 bytes
screenshot.png 2724e9107ccae45a888b3531fdc43373b154be3eeadb78841791dcb6a60a34c1 384,239 bytes
text.txt 7bf853872a073bde9c2d71a41fbf9bfd3cda8147c278ab15426ebc9c8e627a9f 3,223 bytes

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