Arda Büyükkaya retweeted
StealMyBitcoin is solved! This is the absolute best explanation you’ll see on how hard #php2shell is to exploit. The author had to trigger a precise memory corruption condition, leak internal memory addresses, bypass aslr, reverse engineer php’s internal memory structures, forge structures to hijack execution, and account for php build differences, worker behavior and timing to get RCE. 20 http requests with a 7 out of 10 success rate. What an amazingly successful CTF. Impressive the creator was able to keep the server up during all the attempts. With all the BS around it’s nice to see something concrete that moves the art forward.
github.com/KillaBoi/StealMyB…
Love this. The💰is still in the wallet. Finally we get some ground truth around how hard php2shell is to exploit. The amount of bullshit flying around from vendors capitalizing on the moment is staggering, And the alert fatigue they’re creating is really going to hurt when a mass exploitable RCE emerges. We still haven’t seen a production site hacked via #php2shell at Wordfence.
Arda Büyükkaya retweeted
They are looking to buy a working exploit with bitcoin. 🤣
Someone has created a vulnerable PHP website, loaded it with a Bitcoin wallet, and challenged the Internet to hack into it and they can keep the Bitcoin. It has a running timer to show if the PHP exploitability was over-hyped. stealmybitcoin.com/
🔥 Just discovered this fantastic project by the @TUdelft
An impressive real-world view of #PHP2Shell #Vulnpocalypse exploitation, powered by honeypots and network telemetry.
#ThreatHunting
🔗 php2shell.delftintellab.com/
Universal exploit for #php2shell is rather impossible, but specialized exploits for known environments are coming. I tried my luck with pfSense 2.7.2 - PHP 8.2.11, FPM, 512M limit. Variant with session file write to a crafted path. Almost entirely written by an open-weights LLM.
Arda Büyükkaya retweeted
If we are not seeing mass exploitation of php2shell, it's not because the exploit is not easy. It's because threat actors are apparently absolute dumbasses, or don't make enough money to afford a Codex subscription.
Re: the widely circulated blog claiming the PHP bugs aren't easily exploitable: @trailofbits has a working exploit that gets a shell on an unmodified MediaWiki installation.
eliastaylor.com/noexploit/
Arda Büyükkaya retweeted
Sorry folks, we have a confirmed PHP compromise with post-exploit activity. Still not the widespread outbreak we all braced for, but it’s actively exploited in the wild. Updated threat brief:
unit42.paloaltonetworks.com/…
Arda Büyükkaya retweeted
A brief update on the critical vulnerabilities in PHP:
We have not yet validated exploitation in the wild and we have no evidence of successful wide scale exploitation. There are currently several exploit PoCs publicly circulating, many of which appear to be "vibe-coded" and are incapable of remote code execution. We have validated some PoCs, however, that are capable of RCE against default deployments of mod_php but not PHP-FPM.
Nonetheless, exploitation may have already begun in a limited fashion and the threat is viable and very serious. Defenders should:
1) Patch & Restart by upgrading to PHP 8.5.12, 8.4.27, 8.3.36, or 8.2.35 and restarting web services
2) Layer Temporary Safeguards at the network edge (WAF/proxy rules) and server configuration level if immediate patching requires a maintenance window
3) Protect Credentials by monitoring for abnormal session traffic and rotating keys and passwords on compromised internet-facing PHP systems exposed prior to patching
🔗 We are continually updating our Cloud Security blog post on this topic with real-world guidance and actionable defense strategies as we learn more. Please keep monitoring these posts for updates as you prioritize your patching efforts: cloud.google.com/blog/produc…
🔗 Technical details from Wiz: wiz.io/blog/php2shell-php-rc…
🔗 Details of the exposure from VirusTotal: blog.virustotal.com/2026/10/…
Arda Büyükkaya retweeted
I'll be the first to admit I'm mediocre at exploit development, but I am in contact with enough extremely talented exploit developers to say this for certain:
Anyone claiming they were "easily" able to generate a working php2shell exploit with AI is either:
a) a world-class exploit developer with an extreme case of imposter syndrome.
b) currently looking at some very confident-sounding but wrong LLM output.
I'm rather certain it's the latter based on the number of AI-hallucinated exploits I've seen posted on GitHub. Threat actors are also blasting my honeypot network with "php2shell" exploits that not only don't work, but aren't even within 10,000 miles of anything to do with how the exploit actually works.
I've seen the same technique from the attached image in multiple alleged "php2shell exploits", including one on GitHub with over 100 stars. Problem is, it's not php2shell, nor is it even a vulnerability at all. It's a technique known as "session poisoning", which can be leveraged to exploit local file inclusion (LFI) vulnerabilities in PHP apps (not PHP itself).
The only thing it has in common with CVE-2026-109618/CVE-2026-109619 is they both use the "PHP_SESSION_UPLOAD_PROGRESS" feature. And mitigation advice for both issues reference setting "session.upload_progress.enabled" to "Off".
People are shoving loose details of the vulnerability into LLMs, the LLMs are keying in on the "PHP_SESSION_UPLOAD_PROGRESS" string, then generating session poisoning code that has nothing to do with the actual CVE. And because the people doing this have absolutely no idea what they're doing, they're confident enough to post their "proof of concept exploit" to GitHub and share it on social media.
So if you see people talking about "session poisoning + LFI" it's likely their LLM hallucinated an exploit based on a 2018 blog by Orange Tsai talking about a local file inclusion attack vector.
What's even worse is that "security researchers" are then using LLMs to triage these exploitation attempts, falling victim to the same hallucinations, then confirming there is ongoing mass-exploitation (there currently isn't).
The actual real exploit is very difficult to exploit, and so far I've not seen anyone successfully get it working on more than a handful of PHP version with highly-specific configurations.
LLMs are useful tools in the hands of skilled professionals, but for others, they're often just a Dunning-Kruger accelerator.
#php2shell. seems to be hard to exploit (mem corruption vs aslr). yes, public pocs now are lab-only rces. this is a good one: github.com/9bie/php2shell-by…
limited to an unrealistic one-worker php-fpm. but it can be upgraded to N workers if we manage to hold N-1 workers :) here it is.
Arda Büyükkaya retweeted
php2shell.censys.com/
Check out the Censys ARC - PHP2SHELL dashboard here!
You can see the vulnerability exposure and remediation including many different breakdowns and views.
Great work by the team!
It took 17 minutes to turn the Gitlab RCE to a working HEAP exploit using Gemini 4 Argon and the advisory, then another hour for the complete chain - super fun for someone like me without any binary exp or source code review experience, new cyber era!
Great find by @joaxcar!
🚨 CRITICAL: GitLab flaw (CVSS 10.0) affects 12 years of releases.
CVE-2026-110264 could allow unauthenticated remote code execution on self-managed servers.
Read - thehackernews.com/2026/10/cr…
Arda Büyükkaya retweeted
Thrilled to share my latest research on AI-assisted cyberattacks and the ARTEX hacking framework!
What initially appeared to be AI-assisted attacks targeting South Korean banks turned out to be part of a much broader operation spanning multiple countries and industries.
My investigation revealed a financially motivated campaign leveraging ARTEX to pursue various monetization opportunities, including stealing customer data, reverse-engineering Android applications to identify vulnerabilities, and even attempting to acquire free NFT tokens.
AI is accelerating the speed and scale of cyberattacks, even when attackers rely on known vulnerabilities, enabling broader targeting and faster exploitation.
A closer look at the attacker's infrastructure, AI-assisted operations, and financial motives:
zscaler.com/blogs/security-r…
PHP exploitation attempts hit AWS honeypots four days before disclosure, and all we get for IOCs is six IPs like it’s 2003.
can someone put some honeypots behind finch (github.com/0x4D31/finch) or something so we get actual telemetry, at least until the @GreyNoiseIO folks get back to work?
PHP2Shell (CVE-2026-109618/109619) hit our MadPot honeypots on Oct 17, four days before disclosure.
Investigating? Start your timeline there, not at the advisory date. Patch to 8.5.12 / 8.4.27 / 8.3.36 / 8.2.35 now.
aws.amazon.com/blogs/securit…
Arda Büyükkaya retweeted
BRRRRRROTHER
Node.js Security Advisory: a high-severity RCE flaw in Node's Brotli decoder affects Node.js 22, 24, and 26.
Vercel WAF rules are live for every project and block known exploit patterns.
vercel.com/kb/bulletin/node-…




































