Cloudflare Reports Millions of Attacks Following PHP Vulnerability Disclosure

In the 10 hours leading up to the vulnerability becoming public, thousands of exploit attempts were recorded, a figure that has now escalated into the millions, Prince detailed in a Thursday post on X.

Cloudflare is an internet infrastructure provider that accelerates website loading and protects against cyberattacks. The company reports that about 20% of all websites worldwide route their traffic through its network.

On Wednesday, the PHP Foundation admitted that resource constraints had delayed addressing this critical security flaw, originally discovered in 2024, and issued emergency patches for two severe vulnerabilities.

This security gap could enable attackers to distribute malicious software or insert harmful scripts into websites globally. Research from W3Techs indicates that PHP is used on roughly 69% of sites with identified server-side languages.

The FBI’s Cyber Division warned that these two critical vulnerabilities might let attackers remotely execute code within PHP’s core, risking the exposure of sensitive data and network breaches. They urged organizations on Wednesday via X to promptly update their systems or take them offline.

As a precaution, multiple organizations and government bodies temporarily shut down their websites on Wednesday to mitigate the threat.

Cloudflare's report underscores the urgency of addressing widespread PHP vulnerabilities to safeguard a large portion of the internet from potential cyberattacks.