On Wednesday, October 21, 2026, a pair of PHP vulnerabilities will be unveiled at 14:00 UTC, which is 10:00 Eastern or 07:00 Pacific.

News has rocketed around the Internet because these are very serious CVEs.  Here’s a blog post from php.net, which you may not be able to read live because their site seems to be under extreme load and is timing out for me.

The PHP security team would like to give advance notice of an upcoming security release.

It is scheduled for Wednesday, 21 October 2026 at 14:00 UTC.

It addresses two critical vulnerabilities, both rated CVSS v4.0 9.2.

All PHP users are encouraged to prepare now so they can upgrade as soon as the release is available.

We reserve the right to release earlier should details of either vulnerability become public, or should evidence of active exploitation appear in the wild.

Full details, affected versions, and the fixed versions will be published with the release.

Thank you for helping us keep PHP secure.

You can read this page from Watchtowr which has a lot more info.

I recommend following the news on LowEndTalk.  There are some fixes noted but nothing has been officially released as of this reading.  Hopefully we can all just run an apt update && apt -y upgrade and get on with our day.

raindog308

raindog308 is a longtime community LETizen, technical writer, and self-described techno polymath. With deep roots in the *nix world, he has a passion for systems both modern and vintage, ranging from Unix, Perl, Python, and Golang to shell scripting and mainframe-era operating systems like MVS. He’s equally comfortable with relational database systems, having spent years working with Oracle, PostgreSQL, and MySQL.

As an avid user of LowEndBox providers, raindog308 runs an empire of LEBs, from tiny boxes for VPNs, to mid-sized instances for application hosting, and heavyweight servers for data storage and complex databases. He brings both technical rigor and real-world experience to every piece he writes.

Beyond the command line, raindog308 has a life-long love of German Shepherd Dogs, high-quality knives, target shooting, theology, tabletop RPGs, playing guitar, and hiking in deep, quiet forests.

His goal with every article is to help users, from beginners to seasoned sysadmins, get more value, performance, and enjoyment out of their infrastructure.

You can find him daily in the forums at LowEndTalk under the handle @raindog308.