29 October 2026
Site owners must take swift action to avoid catastrophic attacks
WordPress has urgently warned site owners to patch PHP immediately, following the release of critical security fixes by the PHP project on October 21, 2024. These vulnerabilities could spell disaster for unpatched sites.
The Extent of the Damage
On October 21, 2024, the PHP project released a critical security update, patching severe flaws in PHP 8.2.12, 8.1.27, 8.0.36, and 7.4.35. According to WordPress, the CVE-2024-109618 and CVE-2024-109619 vulnerabilities not only affect WordPress, but any PHP application. Even worse, WordPress cannot issue its own security release to resolve these issues, as the flaw is rooted in core PHP itself.
WordPress describes this as a "serious security risk" which could serve as "a backdoor for attackers to take control of a server". According to the WordPress security bulletin, systems running these PHP versions "could be seriously compromised".
The severity of the CISA KEV catalogue update of October 26, 2024, echoes WordPress's urgency - it says the vulnerabilities enable "unauthenticated remote code execution on the underlying system," a threat that goes beyond just a compromise of an application.
Who is affected and why
The problems affect any PHP application served by a PHP stack, including many common server configurations, beyond just WordPress. In its update, CISA described the threats to servers running Apache with mod_php, PHP-FPM, php-cgi, or LiteSpeed - a list that covers many popular web and app server setups. That scale should prompt both WordPress and non-WordPress site owners into action.
But what's notably absent from CISA's list of affected stacks is the popular Nginx PHP-FPM configuration, which might be good news for some hosts - though this shouldn't be relied upon. All PHP 8.2.8, 8.1.26, 8.0.35, 7.4.34 and earlier versions should be considered vulnerable.
More on this is available via africacasinohub.com.
What you need to do now, and why you can't just wait.
According to WordPress, you probably don't need to find your SSH password, or the WordPress plugins tab. Instead, use the Tools > Site Health > Info > Server check in your WordPress dashboard. You can also check your hosting control panel, or any other control panel interface provided by your hosting provider.
If you're on a managed hosting plan, your hosting provider may have already applied the necessary updates, and CISA described web application firewalls as a mitigating response - but it's worth double-checking anyway, as your site's security should never depend on a remote party. Fortunately, even an inexperienced site owner should be able to implement it using WordPress' guide.
If you're managing your own server, consult the PHP update guides for 8.2, 8.1, 8.0 and 7.4. For those who don't have time - or are running legacy platforms - CISA says it's important "to disconnect systems running the vulnerable version of PHP until they can upgrade."
In its blog post responding to the alerts, WordPress noted that its managed platform, WordPress.com, has already patched all affected sites - which should reassure those using it, and others as they follow its lead.
Still, WordPress users will be understandably concerned about the aftermath. That's perhaps where the greatest comfort comes from CISA's response, which praised "efforts worldwide" in addressing the vulnerabilities, and noted "the vulnerable versions of PHP are unlikely to stay in use in widely used software packages for any significant period of time".
