PHP2Shell WP Fix

If you have a blog and you aren’t using a WYSIWYG site like Wix, you probably need to update your version of PHP. Today all of my blue team and network admins have been struggling to fix all the things, RIP friends.

What is it?

PHP2Shell (CVE-2026-109618 and CVE-2026-109619) – from Wiz: https://www.wiz.io/blog/php2shell-php-rce

Wiz Research uncovered multiple critical vulnerabilities in core PHP, a popular general-purpose scripting language that powers 70% of all websites in the world. Successful exploitation could allow attackers to take control of affected servers, steal sensitive data, and deface the websites running on them. 

PHP is a backbone of the web: it’s the programming language powering WordPress, Joomla, Drupal, Wikipedia’s MediaWiki, and many others.

These vulnerabilities include memory disclosure and unauthenticated remote code execution in PHP itself, independent of the application running on top of it, putting every affected website in immediate risk. 

Every PHP version released in the last decade is affected by at least one of these vulnerabilities, going back to version 5.4. Attackers can exploit them remotely, in some cases fairly easily. Immediate patching is strongly advised.

Easy steps to fix.

1. Check your version of PHP – Log into your wp-admin dashboard, tools => Site Health => Server. If your PHP is less than 8.3.36, you need to patch.

*note: use code at your own risk, if you are here hopefully you have some idea of what this does*

2. Log into your server via SSH or host dashboard

3. Update your package lists and PHP.

sudo apt-get udpate

sudo apt-get --only-upgrade install php8.3 libapache2-mod-php8.3

4. Restart Apache

sudo systemctl restart apache2

4. Check Tools => Site Health => Server to verify PHP is now 8.3.36+