Yet another Hacker News

PHP web runtimes (CVE-2026-109618 and CVE-2026-109619)

91 points hayd 2 hours ago 22 comments

hayd 2 hours ago | parent

We didn't get much information throughout the day, besides these comments by an AWS employee/Amazon Linux maintainer on this thread: https://github.com/amazonlinux/amazon-linux-2023/issues/1148...

He referenced an nginx Important CVE taking 20 days to be patched - after it was noted that these PHP CVEs were also labelled by AWS as Important (not Critical). This employee took issue to another user's comment describing 20 days as "nearly a month".

Amazon Linux users/AWS customers barely got any tangible information from the CVE publication at 14:00UTC until this bulletin was posted at 21:30UTC. Very disappointing.

Twirrim 1 hour ago | parent

Where, exactly, does Amazon classify the PHP RCE as Important?

I'm not sure anything says what your editorialised title, and comment link says.

They were calling out that an NGINX CVE that was Important took 20 days. They're saying nothing about what classification Amazon has set on PHP,.

> So, from the CVE publication to an available fixed package it took 20 days, not a month.

They specifically call out that it's not the same as the Nginx case:

> In contrast to the PHP's case, that CVE wasn't Critical, but only Important, that doesn't have the same urgency.

hayd 1 hour ago | parent

https://explore.alas.aws.amazon.com/CVE-2026-109618.html https://explore.alas.aws.amazon.com/CVE-2026-109619.html

Both are labelled Important, not Critical.

pixl97 1 hour ago | parent

Heh, what is critical in their eyes? Catching the servers physically on fire?

trgfdffd 1 hour ago | parent

It seems to me that this comment is just regarding an earlier vulnerability and doesn't comment on PHP2Shell?

mikeweiss 1 hour ago | parent

Amazon has a bad track record for delivering critical updates quickly. During the Copy Fail - CVE-2026-31431 event they were behind every major Linux distro in updating Bottlerocket OS

captn3m0 1 hour ago | parent

Bottlerocket's changelog through the storm of Linux CVEs these last year has been bad as well: https://github.com/bottlerocket-os/bottlerocket/blob/develop...

Roughly one release every 15-20 days.

otterley 1 hour ago | parent

Patch releases are currently scheduled for tomorrow (October 22): https://aws.amazon.com/security/security-bulletins/2026-143-...

aeyes 20 minutes ago | parent

Good reminder to never use Amazon Linux. What is taking them so long to package a minor release?

hayd 1 hour ago | parent

Update: After posting this Amazon security released a bulletin to say we should see the updates _some time tomorrow_. https://aws.amazon.com/security/security-bulletins/2026-143-...

Scant messaging throughout the day. I don't understand why AWS, seemingly, didn't have prior knowledge of this/have it ready very soon after the CVE announcement.

otterley 1 hour ago | parent

> Scant messaging throughout the day. I don't understand why AWS, seemingly, didn't have prior knowledge of this/have it ready very soon after the CVE announcement.

Posts elsewhere have suggested that the embargo was broken early. Even the PHP release team itself didn't have sufficient time to update their public Docker images before it was published.

hayd 1 hour ago | parent

My understanding is the embargo was scheduled to end 14:00 UTC today, broken 07:41 UTC by Chainguard... It's now 22:00 UTC and AWS are talking about (some time) tomorrow.

radlad 1 hour ago | parent

Yes, PHP release was scheduled for Wednesday, 21 October 2026 at 14:00 UTC: https://news-web.php.net/php.announce/509

bunderbunder 1 hour ago | parent

The official story is that it was originally scheduled for 14:00 UTC tomorrow. Then yesterday they decided to move the date forward by 24 hours in response to information about the vulnerability leaking.

edaemon 1 hour ago | parent

Even assuming they didn't have prior knowledge, I don't understand why AWS is going to take 24+ hours to incorporate an upstream fix.

otterley 1 hour ago | parent

Probably because it takes time for them to run all the regression tests. They don't want to break something while fixing something else. Damned either way.

In the meantime, you can mitigate the vulnerability significantly by following the instructions here: https://www.abstract.security/blog/php2shell-critical-php-rc...

80fj0348i 1 hour ago | parent

Honest question: Does anyone actually use Amazon Linux in production? Everywhere I've every worked used a mainstream distro for cloud servers, like Debian, Ubuntu, Red Hat or SUSE.

otterley 1 hour ago | parent

I do. It works fine, particularly if you're using EKS- or ECS-optimized images.

iririririr 1 hour ago | parent

aren't everyone using lambda functions? and aws infra itself? they migth only consider the urgency of internal teams, so anything !java will be pushed.

benjaopazoc 1 hour ago | parent

We did, until this morning

pier25 1 hour ago | parent

sounds like they are trying to get rid of users of Amazon Linux honestly