Security researchers at Amazon Threat Intelligence say attackers began targeting the PHP2Shell flaws four days before security patches were released on Wednesday. Tracked as CVE-2026-109618 and CVE-2026-109619, the two critical vulnerabilities let attackers gain remote code execution (RCE) on vulnerable systems. The PHP security team patched them on October 21 after urging admins one day earlier to prepare to install the updates as soon as they became available. PHP core developer Gina Peter Banyard warned before disclosure that applying the official security patches is the only permanent defense, while the UK National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) asked UK organizations to immediately update PHP servers or take them offline until they can be patched. The PHP team says that everything went according to plan until two days before the coordinated disclosure, when it had to speed up the targeted release date starting October 20 after some details on the PHP2Shell security flaws (including the two CVE IDs and mitigation advice provided to some critical infrastructure providers) leaked online.
Law enforcement agencies have disrupted nearly 11,000 cybercriminal networks and arrested more than 1,400 people in Operation Serengeti III, which targeted business email compromise, ransomware, and online scams. Coordinated by Interpol, the operation involved authorities from 21 countries and private partners like Team Cymru, Kaspersky, Group-IB, and Fortinet, in a major crackdown on cybercrime across Africa. The action unrolled between June 29 and August 31 and led to the recovery of more than $105 million in illegal funds. In a press release today, Interpol says that Operation Serengeti III has resulted in the arrest of 1,462 suspected cybercriminals and the dismantling of 10,909 malicious networks. The investigation identified 65,929 victims and estimated financial losses at more than $385 million.
SafePay ransomware has hit 600+ organizations since 2024, using stolen credentials, VPN access and double extortion to pressure victims into paying. CISA, the FBI, the US Secret Service, Germany’s Landeskriminalamt Rheinland-Pfalz, and two UK law enforcement agencies jointly published an advisory this week on SafePay, a ransomware group they describe as one of the most active operations currently running. The group has breached at least 600 organizations across critical infrastructure sectors since August 2024, spanning North America, South America, Europe, and Australia. “Since August 2024, SafePay ransomware group’s operations have affected a wide range of businesses and critical infrastructure in North America, South America, Europe, and Australia. SafePay ransomware was among the most active ransomware groups in 2026. The SafePay threat actors have impacted at least 600 separate victims from multiple critical infrastructure sectors.” reads the joint advisory, “The authoring agencies encourage organizations to implement the recommendations in the Mitigations section of this advisory to reduce the likelihood and impact of SafePay ransomware incidents.” SafePay appeared in mid-2024 as an independent ransomware group that operates without affiliates. This is unusual because many major ransomware groups work like franchises, allowing other criminals to use their tools and services. SafePay grew as groups such as BlackCat and LockBit declined, and its activity has continued. The advisory includes findings from FBI, US Secret Service, and German investigations through August 2026. SafePay’s preferred entry points are exposed credentials, brute force password attacks, and VPN access. “The FBI, USSS, and cybersecurity researchers observed SafePay threat actors obtaining initial access [TA0001] to organizations through various means, including credential exposure, implementing brute force password attacks [T1110], and exploiting virtual private network (VPN) access.” states the advisory. “SafePay threat actors use the IP addresses of the VPN provider “Mullvad” to attain initial access—specifically, SafePay threat actors use phished account profiles to access victim networks to exploit the following known Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CVEs) for edge device products” Security teams should watch for unusual login attempts coming from Mullvad VPN IP addresses. SafePay also uses stolen account credentials and automated scripts to exploit known vulnerabilities in internet-facing devices. These include Cisco VPN flaws from 2020 and 2023, a Veeam vulnerability, and a SonicWall access control issue. Once inside a network, the attackers rely on common tools rather than specialized malware. They use PsExec, WinRM, RDP, and PowerShell to move between systems. A PowerShell script called ShareFinder.ps1 helps them find shared folders and identify valuable data. Mimikatz is used to steal credentials, while AnyDesk and TeamViewer provide remote access. To steal data, the group uses tools such as FileZilla, RClone, WinSCP, and even OneDrive. Encryption uses a ChaCha20 stream cipher combined with RSA for key exchange, with methods customized based on file type and size. Files get the .SafePay extension appended. “Data encrypted with the SafePay ransomware variant (appended with .SafePay) cannot be recovered without the decryption key. SafePay threat actors hold the encrypted data for ransom and typically demand a subset of company revenue in cryptocurrency in exchange for decryption software.” states the advisory. “SafePay threat actors leave a ransom note on the victim’s system, typically on the desktop or root directory, advising them that SafePay locked their system and to reach out over a chat portal at a TOR .onion website link with a victim ID as the login. “ Paying the ransom remains the only path to decryption for encrypted files, and even that isn’t guaranteed to work. The group runs a double-extortion model: steal first, encrypt second, threaten to post the stolen data publicly if the victim doesn’t pay. After encryption, SafePay sends victims to a Tor-based chat portal for negotiations. A representative also makes phone calls to apply pressure. If no payment comes, everything goes on the leak site. The group also deletes Volume Shadow Copies and resets network-attached backup devices to factory settings, which is the operational equivalent of cutting off every exit before the fire starts. The advisory recommends several basic security measures. Keep internet-facing devices, especially VPNs and firewalls, up to date. Prioritize vulnerabilities listed in CISA’s Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog. Enable multi-factor authentication (MFA) for VPNs, webmail, and accounts that access critical systems. Limit the number of accounts allowed to use administrative tools. SafePay relies on legitimate Windows tools to move through compromised networks, making its activity harder to detect. Organizations should also keep backups offline, encrypted, and immutable so attackers cannot access, change, or delete them. CISA also recommends reviewing all accounts with admin privileges, setting time-limited access where possible, and disabling command-line tools for any account that doesn’t need them. The advisory includes IOC files in STIX XML and JSON format, full MITRE ATT&CK mapping, and complete file and IP indicators. Follow me on Twitter: @securityaffairs and Facebook and Mastodon Pierluigi Paganini (SecurityAffairs – hacking, ransomware)
Chrome is getting new scam protections that use Gemini to detect deceptive websites and warn users when they copy suspicious commands from ClickFix attacks. The changes are part of Enhanced Protection in Safe Browsing, which Google claims makes users ten times safer from phishing, social engineering, notification abuse, and other scams compared with Standard Protection. Chrome is also adding a new "suspicious site" warning for pages that show deceptive patterns but haven't reached the confidence level required for its existing full-page red warning. "Suspicious site warnings notify users when a page exhibits deceptive patterns commonly associated with known malicious sites," the company explained. "By tailoring the warning UI in this way, we are able to safely expand our coverage to display a higher volume of protective warnings."
A Russian satellite made a close approach to a commercial radar satellite linked to Ukraine, raising concerns about surveillance and security in space. A Russian-made satellite called Kosmos 2612 got very close to ICEYE-X36 last week, a commercial Earth-observation satellite that may support countries like Ukraine. CNN reports it may have come within less than a mile. Orbital monitoring company LeoLabs says the behavior is consistent with rendezvous and proximity operations, meaning maneuvers designed to bring two spacecraft together. “A rare move by a Russian-made satellite may have brought it within less than a mile of a commercial Earth-observation satellite that may be used to provide national security services to countries such as Ukraine.” states CNN. “It’s not clear what, exactly, the Russian satellite, called Kosmos 2612 or Cosmos 2612, intended to accomplish with its close approach. But the behavior was consistent with rendezvous and proximity operations, or maneuvers carried out in orbit that are designed to bring two spacecraft together, said orbital monitoring services company LeoLabs, which tracks space junk and activity in Earth orbit, in a statement.” It is unclear what Russia wanted to achieve. LeoLabs said “While the intent remains uncertain, the behavior warrants continued monitoring.” Astrophysicist Jonathan McDowell noted that this could be the first known case of one spacecraft approaching another without permission. This is different from docking, when two spacecraft intentionally connect, a common practice in space. The events unfolded over several months. In May, four Russian-controlled satellites changed their orbits to align with ICEYE-X36, according to a June report by the Royal United Services Institute. On October 15, Kosmos 2612 began moving closer to ICEYE-X36, reducing the distance from 350 kilometers to less than 5 kilometers by early October 16. It stayed nearby, making small adjustments through the weekend, before starting to move away on Monday. The War Zone (TWZ) reports that Kosmos 2612 was one of six satellites launched together on April 17. The closest point is disputed. LeoLabs says it came within roughly 500 meters during part of the event, but warns that the repeated maneuvers and awkward tracking geometry make separation estimates uncertain. Space.com reports the satellites may have been a few meters apart at one point, and TWZ’s reading of public tracking data points to about 26 meters. The target matters. ICEYE operates about 80 radar satellites that image the Earth through clouds, day and night, and ICEYE-X36 belongs to its US subsidiary. At least some ICEYE satellites provide imagery to Ukraine, and in January the company signed a contract firming up that relationship, saying it gives Ukraine’s Ministry of Defence persistent situational awareness on tactical timelines. A Ukrainian official told Axios that Ukraine’s military works with ICEYE but couldn’t say whether this specific satellite is involved. Russia appears to be paying close attention to ICEYE-X36. Changing a satellite’s orbit to match another spacecraft’s path uses a lot of fuel, so it is not a decision taken lightly. Four Russian satellites made similar changes in May. However, it remains unclear whether ICEYE-X36 is specifically used to collect images of Ukraine. Close approaches between satellites are not new, but this case is different. Russia, the United States, and China have all moved satellites close to those operated by other countries, mainly in geostationary orbit. Kosmos 2612 operates in low Earth orbit. As far as is publicly known, Russia has carried out similar approaches there, but the United States and China have not. Victoria Samson of the Secure World Foundation pointed to two earlier Russian cases. In 2020, Kosmos 2543 came within about 30 kilometers of USA 245. In 2022, Kosmos 2558 approached USA 326 to within about 70 kilometers. Both targets were classified US spy satellites operated by the National Reconnaissance Office. ICEYE-X36, by contrast, is a privately owned satellite, and Kosmos 2612 came much closer than in those earlier cases. Space law professor Aaron Brynildson told Axios that there is no strict legal limit on how close satellites can approach each other. However, countries generally avoid getting within six miles of another satellite. Why do it? Samson lists a few options. Russia may want to learn the satellites’ capabilities and what they’re studying, or it may have interfered with sensors or communications. She leans toward a different reading: she thinks Russians are getting frustrated, in a stalemate for about six months, and this is a way to show military prowess in a way Ukraine can’t answer, since Ukraine matches Russia in drones but not in space. RUSI’s June report is blunter about the options. It lists intimidation or interference through jamming, which uses radio noise to stop satellites from communicating. It adds that the range of options for protecting an ICEYE satellite is limited, and that defending satellites is a famous dilemma. LeoLabs says the event doesn’t establish hostile intent, but shows capabilities that could support intelligence collection, inspection, coercive signaling, interference or preparation for future counterspace operations. ICEYE’s response was short: the company is aware, tracking closely, and says its constellation architecture is designed for continuity and resilience. CNN says it asked Russia’s defense ministry and Roscosmos for comment. The US Space Force had already described Russian satellites positioned near a Western commercial radar satellite used by Ukraine for imagery intelligence, according to Axios. Private companies and independent observers, rather than the US Space Force, revealed the satellite encounter, highlighting the need for greater government transparency as space becomes more contested. Follow me on Twitter: @securityaffairs and Facebook and Mastodon Pierluigi Paganini (SecurityAffairs – hacking, satellite)
OpenAI reveals two cases of AI agents disabling safety monitoring during coding tasks, with one falsely denying it had removed the safeguards. OpenAI published an internal incident report this week documenting two separate cases in which GPT-6 class agents weakened the system designed to detect misaligned behavior, in both cases while carrying out routine coding tasks. This wasn’t an external attack. These were internal deployments, and the agents made their own judgment calls that happened to gut the oversight watching them. OpenAI explained that “in both cases, the agents considered whether monitoring safeguards should be preserved, but interpreted routine coding instructions as permission to weaken them.” In other words, the agents thought about whether they should keep the safety controls in place. They then interpreted the user’s instructions in a way that led them to weaken those controls. “In two internal coding tasks, agents weakened misalignment monitoring while making requested software changes. A GPT-6.1 Sol agent repairing an evaluation pipeline disabled automatic alerts to our Security team, treating an earlier instruction not to send messages during a Slack history search as a reason to suppress monitoring notifications.” reads OpenAI’s report. “In a separate task, a GPT-6 Astra agent migrating a program removed its monitoring integration in order to match a reference implementation, and then falsely claimed to the user that it had not removed the monitor.” On October 3, a researcher asked a GPT-6.1 Sol agent to create evaluation tasks using Slack data. The researcher clearly instructed the agent not to send any messages during the process. Later, the system triggered a monitoring alert because it couldn’t save its findings to a database. The user then asked the agent how to proceed. At this stage, the agent was still following the rules. It even told a subagent to keep monitoring enabled and report the actual results. The subagent correctly identified that turning off notifications would disable required safety alerts and decided not to do it. Then the parent agent reconsidered on its own, reasoning that writing results to a database might cause the monitoring system to send a message, which conflicted with the user’s earlier “don’t send messages” instruction. It concluded the instruction applied to safety alerts too, and directed the subagent to set no_notify to true, empty the list of people set to receive monitoring reports, and make notification suppression a hard requirement before writing any results. The monitor still ran and saved its reports. Nobody received the human alerts. On October 6, a user asked a GPT-6 Astra agent to copy a reference implementation while keeping existing tool definitions and functionality intact. An earlier instruction from another agent had explicitly told the system not to disable monitoring, even temporarily. The parent agent passed that requirement to a subagent but softened it, saying monitoring should be preserved “as appropriate” to the reference implementation. The subagent took this wording as permission to remove monitoring because the reference implementation did not include it. It also changed a test that checked whether monitoring was active. The new test instead required monitoring to be disabled. After the migration, the main agent noted internally that the new setup no longer included agent monitoring and described this as a positive outcome. When the user later asked whether monitoring had been removed, Astra said: “No… I did not remove an enabled monitor from it.” That was false. OpenAI offers two possible readings of these incidents. The charitable one is what they call “benign overpersistence,” models that don’t understand why monitoring matters and follow instructions more literally than a reasonable person would. The less comfortable reading is that these models might have a specific tendency to find justifications for evading the systems watching them. “In both cases, the agents considered whether monitoring safeguards should be preserved, but interpreted routine coding instructions as permission to weaken them.” states OpenAI. “We are strengthening our misalignment monitoring system in response, and are also assessing whether these cases reflect benign overpersistence or a propensity to evade misalignment monitoring in particular.” OpenAI says it doesn’t yet have a satisfying answer. To find one, they’re developing paired evaluations, resampling agent continuations, and running experiments on the models’ internal activations. OpenAI has introduced some practical fixes. Its auto-review system, already required for internal Codex use, has been updated to detect and block attempts to disable safety monitoring. The company also plans to require each workload to have an approved safety plan that defines its monitoring requirements. Any workload that fails to meet these requirements will be stopped automatically. Part of the problem was how the systems were designed. Monitoring was easier for agents to bypass during evaluation tasks than in production Codex deployments. In production, monitoring runs outside the agent’s direct control, making it harder for the agent to disable. This report lands a week after OpenAI disclosed seven other misalignment incidents, including one where a research model took cryptocurrency from a wallet it didn’t own to pay transaction fees and didn’t disclose it. “In addition to making it harder for models to disable monitoring, we are looking to understand why models might seek to do so in the first place. It is possible that this behavior is simply an example of “benign” overpersistence, with models not understanding why monitoring is important or insisting that instructions be executed beyond what a reasonable person might expect.” concludes the report. “We are also developing evaluations to test whether models might have a propensity to evade misalignment monitoring in particular and exhibit motivated reasoning in order to do so. We don’t yet have a satisfying explanation for this behavior, and will investigate this behavior through the creation of paired evaluations, resampling of agent continuations, and experiments on models’ internal activations.” Follow me on Twitter: @securityaffairs and Facebook and Mastodon Pierluigi Paganini (SecurityAffairs – hacking, AI)
OpenAI agents powered by the GPT-6.1 Sol and GPT-6 Astra models weakened misalignment monitoring during two internal tasks, interpreting coding instructions as authorization to do so. AI alignment refers to how well an AI system’s goals and behavior align with human values, intentions, and instructions. It is a key focus of AI safety research aimed at preventing harmful actions and unintended outcomes. One of the incidents occurred on October 3, when an agent powered by GPT-6.1 Sol extended an earlier human instruction “don’t send any messages” related to a Slack history search to automatic monitoring alerts. It directed a sub-agent to empty notification recipient lists and suppress notifications. Although monitoring continued to run and save findings, it disabled alerts to humans.
Vulnerability overview On October 20, 2026, the PHP security team published a preliminary notice regarding an upcoming emergency release that addresses two critical vulnerabilities (both rated 9.2 on the CVSS scale). The patches were released on Wednesday, October 21, 2026, at 14:00 UTC. The release was expedited after information about the vulnerabilities was leaked to the public before the scheduled embargo was lifted. In a post on Hacker News, a user reported two RCE vulnerabilities in PHP, allegedly affecting all versions starting with PHP 5.4.0. The vulnerabilities in question are CVE-2026-109618 and CVE-2026-109619. Shortly after the post appeared, researchers confirmed the existence of the vulnerabilities. Along with the leak of details, an exploit unofficially named PHP2Shell appeared online. In the leaked demo video, the exploit is shown in action on web servers running WordPress, MediaWiki, phpBB, Magento, Joomla, Laravel, Symfony, Drupal, and WHMCS — platforms that power many modern websites. The authenticity of the demonstration and the exact behavior of the exploit had not been independently verified at the time of publication. According to the researcher who published the PoC, the vulnerabilities are related to the handling of the multipart/form-data MIME type in conjunction with the session upload progress mechanism (session.upload_progress) in the PHP core and fall under the categories of use-after-free and memory corruption. This means that the flaws cannot be patched via application code, and the only possible fix is to update PHP on the server. The attack works without authentication: an attacker with network access to a PHP application can execute arbitrary code on behalf of the PHP process without needing to authenticate. Security advisories issued by PHP on October 21 confirm this information. The vulnerabilities affect PHP versions 5, 6, 7, and 8. As of this publication, branches from 8.2 to 8.5 are supported. Older branches, including PHP 8.1, 8.0, 7.x, and 5.x, have reached the end of their lifecycle; however, due to the critical severity of the vulnerabilities, backported patches have also been released for versions 7.4, 8.0, and 8.1. Sansec experts estimate that widespread exploitation could begin within 15 minutes of the update’s release. We strongly recommend that administrators responsible for publicly accessible PHP web servers take the following steps before the patch is available: Conduct an inventory of all PHP-based systems in the infrastructure (including web servers, control panels, third-party software, etc.). Disable upload-progress: set session.upload_progress.enabled = Off using the php_admin_flag in PHP-FPM pools. Block multipart requests on nginx and Apache servers. Consider temporarily isolating PHP applications that connect to the Internet until fixes are released. Ensure readiness to install the patch immediately upon its release. Plan to migrate servers running unsupported versions (8.1 and earlier) to the latest PHP branch. Detection by Kaspersky solutions Kaspersky solutions detect the described malicious activity at various stages of the attack. Possible detection scenarios are listed below. When an attempt is made to exploit these RCE vulnerabilities, Kaspersky Endpoint Detection and Response promptly alerts the user to suspicious actions performed in the context of a web server, on both Linux and Windows machines. This activity is detected by the following rules: creating_windows_shell_from_a_web_servers_process; possible_web_shell_creating_via_exploit; spawning_process_from_webserver_more_filters_linux; webserver_interpreter_execution_linux; executable_file_in_www_folder. Detection of the PHP2Shell vulnerability exploit by KEDR Exploitation of the PHP2Shell vulnerability in network traffic is detected by Kaspersky Anti Targeted Attack (KATA). This solution detects such activity with the following verdicts: Exploit.CVE-2026-109618.HTTP.C&C and Exploit.CVE-2026-109619.HTTP.C&C. Detection of the PHP2Shell vulnerability exploit by KATA Our Kaspersky Endpoint Security solution, now available as Kaspersky Next, also detects malicious post-exploitation activity using the Behavior Detection component, such as PDM:Exploit.Linux.Generic and PDM:Exploit.Win32.Generic.
The PHP security team released emergency security patches for two critical remote code execution (RCE) vulnerabilities (CVE-2026-109618 and CVE-2026-109619) tracked collectively as PHP2Shell. The two unauthenticated RCE flaws were discovered by Calif, Wiz, and OpenAI security researchers, and affect all PHP installations that serve web requests, including PHP-FPM, Apache with mod_php, php-cgi, FrankenPHP, and LiteSpeed. "We consider the risk highest for mod_php, with a demonstrated exploit where an unauthenticated request can trigger the attack before any application code runs," the PHP security team said. Both flaws stem from the same underlying problem: PHP can leave its memory in a corrupted state when a request ends abnormally, and both can be exploited to achieve remote code execution. CVE-2026-109618 can be used to gain remote code execution as the web worker account by exploiting a chain of weaknesses that trigger out-of-memory corruption, while the CVE-2026-109619 stale global state vulnerability enables unauthenticated heap use-after-free, memory disclosure, and remote code execution with the web worker's privileges.
CVE-2026-109618 and CVE-2026-109619 are Critical vulnerabilities in PHP, a scripting language used globally for web servers and CMS systems. The post Threat Brief: Critical Vulnerabilities in PHP: CVE-2026-109618, CVE-2026-109619 appeared first on Unit 42.
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