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CISA adds PHP2Shell flaws to KEV catalog, warns of active exploitation

CISA confirmed active exploitation of both PHP2Shell flaws and urged organizations to patch affected PHP systems immediately.

Alex Blake
Alex Blake Cybersecurity Journalist · October 27, 2026 · 2 min read
CISA adds PHP2Shell flaws to KEV catalog, warns of active exploitation

CISA has added the two PHP2Shell vulnerabilities to its KEV catalog and says they are being actively exploited in the wild.

Both flaws carry a CVSS score of 9.2 on the CVSS severity scale, the agency is advising firms to patch their systems as soon as possible.

The two flaws include CVE-2026-109618, which is a PHP memory corruption vulnerability, and CVE-2026-109619, a PHP stale internal request-state vulnerability.

Both allow for unauthenticated remote code execution, and according to CISA, “these types of vulnerabilities are a frequent attack vector for malicious cyber actors and pose significant risks to the federal enterprise.”

The agency also said that these flaws were both “known exploited vulnerabilities,” meaning threat actors are confirmed to be putting them to use against their targets. CISA did not outline which threat groups have been observed exploiting them

Still, CISA urged organizations to “adopt risk-based vulnerability management and prioritize remediation of KEV Catalog vulnerabilities.”

Both CVE-2026-109618 and CVE-2026-109619 are the PHP2Shell flaws that sent shockwaves through the industry last week. The vulnerability would allow an attacker to remotely execute code on a target machine, and it owed much of its seriousness to the huge number of websites that could be affected.

PHP powers roughly 70% of websites whose server-side language is known, according to W3Techs.

Organizations running PHP should update to versions 8.5.12, 8.4.27, 8.3.36, and 8.2.35, all of which mitigate the PHP2Shell flaw, and firms are strongly encouraged to patch exposed services as soon as they can.

As CISA’s warning attests, attackers are already exploiting unpatched systems.

Alex Blake
Alex Blake Cybersecurity Journalist

Alex Blake is a freelance journalist who has been covering the tech world for over a decade. In that time he's interviewed Apple VPs, reviewed countless products and taken deep dives into the pressing issues of the day. You'll find his work at TechRadar, Macworld, PC Gamer, T3 and more.

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