I developed a proxy that sanitizes input before it reaches PHP. I had to put it together quickly, but since then, I’ve made it a lot more user-friendly, including PHP installation scripts that automatically scan your Web server configuration, and suggest exactly how to install the proxy. The proxy itself is written in C, and I recommend running it under a Linux user that has absolutely no file permissions. All it’s supposed to do is transform input into safe output. I would argue that this proxy might even be safer than the patch, because it might prevent other vulnerabilities that researchers haven’t found yet.
It’s just a generally good idea to sanitize input before it reaches your app servers anyway. But if you are running and older PHP environment, I don’t think there are any other good options than this…
https://claude.ai/artifact/5cZex56WutyVnpMBrWXxzV
TLDR is multiple entries that show successful exploitation against particular setups (quite often honeypots that were kinda set up to be exploitable e.g. single worker mod_php or lab setups that are unclear on how well they match real deployments), one claim from dan guido / trail of bits about a broad exploit (but few details), millions of attempts in the wild but very little evidence of actual compromise (unit 42 withdrew theirs).
xx_ns•1h ago
Dan Guido, of Trail of Bits, claims they have an "universal" exploit [2]. Knowing their track record, I don't currently have a reason to doubt this claim.
[1]: https://stealmybitcoin.com/
[2]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50226010
EDIT: The HN title has been changed since posting this comment.
slowin•1h ago
yurishimo•28m ago
It’s not like it was their first rodeo and they got lucky. There are lots of competent security companies located in countries all around the world, including ones you may not politically agree with.
wazzaps•18m ago
slowin•5m ago
paxy•1h ago
Since it was successfully exploited there has been zero further discussion, and I bet most people who participated in the original thread aren't even aware.
ForHackernews•57m ago
1) A motivated human eager for $500 and internet cred can exploit a vuln (perhaps using AI tooling to help)
2) The vuln is not easily exploitable at scale by driveby bots.
NitpickLawyer•48m ago
syshyk•41m ago
Either way, this was not true.
Tadpole9181•22m ago
nubinetwork•1h ago
jagged-chisel•58m ago
minitech•45m ago
I don’t suppose you’re thinking of when the issue was discovered? That was August 1st, according to https://calif.io/php2shell/#the-discovery.
nubinetwork•38m ago
minitech•35m ago