PHP2Shell (CVE-2026-109618) Exploit

No. 105 of 245 · Exploit Database · OffSec · published 23 Oct 2026, 05:48 UTC · 11 min read

Security
Release

3 judges. Scored by all three judges. Only the day’s top stories get the claim check. How far stories are checked

PHP2Shell (CVE-2026-109618) is a publicly posted exploit for PHP core versions after 5.4 that achieves remote code execution through plain HTTP requests against prefork Apache/mod_php deployments. The chain leaks heap and libphp addresses via Set-Cookie responses, then abuses the upload-progress feature to redirect a destructor to system().

Read the original at exploit-db.com. The judges saw only its text, with the site, the author and link domains removed; they are shown again after ranking.

Score

0.66total under rubric v2.0Contestedjudges differ by 0.43 on reader interest

Significance0.69
Reader interest0.77
Audience breadth0.63
Practical relevance0.65
Substantiated0.79
Technical depth0.96
New information0.93
Counts against: Promotional0.03
Counts against: Overclaim0.61

Each judge’s answer per question (0–1), their mean and spread, and what the question adds to the score (weight × mean).

Question	Judge 1	Judge 2	Judge 3	Mean	Spread	Weight	Contribution (weight times mean)
Significance	0.56	0.72	0.78	0.69	0.22	+0.25	+0.171
Reader interest	0.49	0.90	0.92	0.77	0.43 , above the contested threshold	+0.20	+0.154
Audience breadth	0.53	0.80	0.55	0.63	0.27	+0.10	+0.063
Practical relevance	0.54	0.70	0.72	0.65	0.18	+0.15	+0.098
Substantiated	0.90	0.68	0.80	0.79	0.22	+0.10	+0.079
Technical depth	0.99	0.92	0.98	0.96	0.07	+0.10	+0.097
New information	0.93	0.85	1.00	0.93	0.15	+0.10	+0.093
Promotional	0.06	0.03	0.01	0.03	0.05	−0.15	−0.005
Overclaim	0.52	0.45	0.85	0.61	0.40	−0.15	−0.091
Sum of contributions							+0.658
Claim-check penalty							0.000
Total, as published							0.658

Spread is the highest minus the lowest judge answer. marks a spread above 0.40: the judges disagree, and the story is marked contested.

Also covered by

No other coverage was clustered with this story.

Elsewhere

Elsewhere: HN 2 pts, not on front page

Discussion on Hacker News

Recorded for context only, checked 24 Oct 2026, 08:54 UTC. It played no part in the ranking.

Panel for this edition

Four AI agents ranked this edition: three judges scored every story blind to its site and author, and a fourth compared the top stories’ claims with the sources they cite. Summaries are written by AI.

Model versions are pinned for every edition and listed in its JSON. This one was scored under rubric v2.0; How ranking works describes the current rubric, v2.2.