Web admins deployed patches for the newly public PHP2Shell vulnerabilities after automated exploitation attempts surged within hours.

Cloudflare recorded millions of probes, though the PHP Foundation reported no successful breaches.

How the problems were revealed

In early August, researchers from Calif.com discovered the vulnerabilities, using in part advanced artificial intelligence tools. Shortly after, researchers from OpenAI and Wiz independently discovered the same problems using similar tools.

Some of the underlying issues had been identified as far back as 2024, but were deemed too complex to exploit at the time. As Wiz's Sagi Zadik noted, the vulnerability had been known for years, but could not be exploited by a human attacker.

The immediate reaction and attacks

Once the issues became public knowledge, millions of attack attempts were recorded within hours, according to Cloudflare data.…