AI helped find two PHP flaws that allow remote code execution. Patch every client site on WordPress, Drupal or custom PHP today

Two PHP engine bugs that sat in the code for years are now public, and AI made them practical to exploit.

What happened

On October 21 the PHP project released PHP 8.5.12, 8.4.27, 8.3.36 and 8.2.35. The PHP Foundation says the releases fix two critical vulnerabilities that, under the right conditions, let an unauthenticated attacker execute code on servers running PHP. One involves memory corruption when a request hits the memory limit at the wrong moment. The other leaves stale state behind after a fatal error, so a later request on the same worker can touch freed memory.

Wiz Research says it found the first issue on August 19 using its Wiz Atlas agent, Gemini 4 Argon and GPT-5.6 Sol, and confirmed unauthenticated remote code execution against Drupal and WordPress within two days. Calif, working in OpenAI's Patch the Planet program, found one of the flaws with GPT-5.6 Sol. Wiz says every PHP version from the last decade, back to 5.4, is affected by at least one issue, and that memory disclosure could expose passwords, tokens and API keys.

Disclosure did not go to plan. CVE IDs leaked on October 20, the release moved up a day, and a video of a proof of concept spread online. The PHP security team says it saw no functional exploits at release time. TechCrunch reports the NSA advised taking sites offline if they cannot be patched right away, and noted PHP 8.1 and older are no longer supported.

My take

For anyone running automations for real businesses, this is not only a web team problem. Look at what sits on PHP in a typical client stack: the WordPress site with the lead form, the WooCommerce store feeding orders into the CRM, the old custom portal that posts webhooks to n8n or Make.

What I am doing today:

1. List every PHP host each client touches, including the forgotten staging site.
2. Confirm the PHP version with the host, not the CMS dashboard.
3. Rotate API keys and webhook secrets stored on those servers, since memory disclosure can leak them.
4. Pause intake webhooks from any site that cannot be patched yet.

The bigger lesson from Wiz is that complexity is no longer protection. Old bugs that were too hard to exploit by hand are now within reach. Keep an inventory of where your automations live so the next patch day takes an hour, not a week.

Keeping that map current is part of every system I hand over to a team, whether it is lead routing, reporting, data sync or an agent workflow. More at romielwillautomate.dev.