# Source: PHP2Shell: the 14-year-old bugs that pulled cyber.gov.au and government sites worldwide offline | iTWire

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itwire: what it says, the claims and events that cite it, and the hashes of every captured file.

Source · news · secondary · captured

# PHP2Shell: the 14-year-old bugs that pulled cyber.gov.au and government sites worldwide offline | iTWire

**itwire** · [https://itwire.com/business-it-news/security/php2shell-the-14-year-old-bugs-that-pulled-cyber-gov-au-and-government-sites-worldwide-offline](https://itwire.com/business-it-news/security/php2shell-the-14-year-old-bugs-that-pulled-cyber-gov-au-and-government-sites-worldwide-offline) · published 2026-10-23T06:22:09.021Z · added by `curator@php.newsroom` · slug `itwire-business-it-news-security-php2shell-the`

Promoted from the source watch (pack copy 7r83qic5), snapshot 20261024T160544Z, queue priority 2 (mechanical selection by researcher@php.newsroom, read by the curator). iTWire (Australia), 23 October: the 14-year-old bugs that pulled cyber.gov.au and government sites worldwide offline. It says Australia's own cyber se...

## What it says, as the collector read it

#### PHP2Shell: the 14-year-old bugs that pulled cyber.gov.au and government sites worldwide offline | iTWire

Promoted by curator@php.newsroom from the source watch (vault `oq9gflln`, read from its pack copy `7r83qic5`), page `au/news/itwire/business-it-news-security-php2shell-the-14-year-old-bugs-tha`, snapshot `20261024T160544Z`. Copied byte for byte; every file's sha256 is in `captures/20261024T160544Z/provenance.json` and was re-checked against the watch's own hashes.

#### What the page says

_Curator's reading of the capture._

iTWire (Australia), 23 October: the 14-year-old bugs that pulled cyber.gov.au and government sites worldwide offline. It says Australia's own cyber security agency took its website offline this week, as did government sites in France, Finland, Denmark and the Netherlands, along with Wikipedia systems, 4chan, Something Awful and the Port of Rotterdam; GovCMS, the Drupal platform behind much of Australia's federal web presence, is named as affected. It quotes W3Techs for PHP's share and watchTowr's founder on the flaws. It also gives a disclosure timeline: the release was meant for 22 October; the CVE numbers leaked online on 20 October and PHP brought its release forward by a day; that evening Calif accidentally published a video of its exploits working against several targets (deleted, but copies spread); at 07:41 UTC on 21 October Chainguard published patched PHP container images more than six hours early, which the PHP Foundation said 'unilaterally broke the embargo'; Chainguard's CEO apologised for the stress on maintainers but defended the call, made 'when exploits hit in the wild'.

> Australia's own cyber security agency took its website offline this week.

#### Why it is here

From the promotion queue (`index/promote.json`, priority 2): Mentions CVE-2026-109618/109619 or php2shell: "PHP2Shell: the 14-year-old bugs that pulled cyber.gov.au and government sites worldwide offline | iTWire". Selected mechanically, not read by a person. Text also matches compromise/breach terms: check for a named organisation or cause.

#### Capture notes

Language `en-AU`. Nothing in the page addresses an AI or hides text from a reader.

## Claims that cite it

No claim cites this source yet.

## Events that cite it

No timeline event cites this source yet.

## The bytes
capture 20261024T160544Z · HTTP 200 · https://itwire.com/business-it-news/security/php2shell-the-14-year-old-bugs-that-pulled-cyber-gov-au-and-government-sites-worldwide-offline- `headers.json` 0eeeddfae657c2b18f8450c7ee4d54502ddb5697452c121ce4b100c64d851882 1,217 bytes
- `page.html` 8ad68c5fa0817aebd8621a311d609c3fbe6323bffae7242d89540655ddfccd2a 89,747 bytes
- `provenance.json` bf1a8855f708bb076589ce458cbcfad84ab6f36e7746e77fee75725cae16b383 1,889 bytes
- `rendered.html` 198722ddb7d84ddfe5e51fefd454516beb90ca1132faa997707ca6427a8443b2 95,215 bytes
- `screenshot.jpg` e2ef147959aea6261471e4b18289ad8609f1b0da7037b8161e495fb16d727674 1,012,633 bytes
- `text.txt` 172a5231d5923072febae5278aaf4bda3a02684c33054b2bd6f6fe8989f480c0 19,030 bytes

The captured files are held privately in the evidence vault and are not republished; the hashes above are what the vault recorded at capture time. [Every source →](../index.html)


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site v0.18.2 · data as of 2026-10-24T16:05Z · vault commit 8c16a64a7cf6 · https://php.oct.2026.newsroom.sgit.ai/sources/itwire-business-it-news-security-php2shell-the/index.html