Weekly Update 527: Cybergeddon News v. Reality

Troy Hunt News

Summary

Troy Hunt's weekly update reflects on the aftermath of the 'PHP2Shell' vulnerability hype, noting the predicted cyber apocalypse never materialized and attributions to real breaches were scarce despite widespread vulnerable sites.

<img src="https://storage.ghost.io/c/fb/33/fb3391dc-723d-4e74-b95a-d641b5feb38e/content/images/2026/10/maxresdefault-1.jpg" alt="Weekly Update 527: Cybergeddon News v. Reality"><p>As the news from last week has settled down, it would seem this headline was pretty spot on. The foretold apocalypse didn&apos;t eventuate, and there were no internet-destroying outages. In fact, it took days before I could find a single story of PHP2Shell being reliably attributed back to a breach. And I don&apos;t think we can say the relatively benign outcome was only achieved because we <em>did </em>take it so seriously either; there&apos;s a massive trove of sites out there that have been left to rot and would have every opportunity to be pwned by a bug of this magnitude <em>that was readily exploitable</em>, yet here we are. Which is good &#x1f642;</p> <!--kg-card-begin: html--> <div><div style="width: 170px; display: inline-block; margin-right: 3px;"><a href="https://itunes.apple.com/au/podcast/troy-hunts-weekly-update-podcast/id1176454699?ref=troy-hunt"><img src="https://storage.ghost.io/c/fb/33/fb3391dc-723d-4e74-b95a-d641b5feb38e/content/images/2018/05/Listen-on-Apple-Podcasts.svg" alt="Weekly Update 527: Cybergeddon News v. Reality"></a></div><div style="width: 175px; display: inline-block; margin-right: 3px;"><a href="https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL7LAAxaabizMAXnJe0s3xjQ30q12EVmjt&amp;ref=troyhunt.com"><img src="https://storage.ghost.io/c/fb/33/fb3391dc-723d-4e74-b95a-d641b5feb38e/content/images/2024/09/Watch-and-Listen-on-YouTube.svg" alt="Weekly Update 527: Cybergeddon News v. Reality"></a></div><div style="width: 118px; display: inline-block; margin-right: 3px;"><a href="https://open.spotify.com/show/7jMtKFohdrw6qmz8AkLqit?ref=troy-hunt"><img src="https://storage.ghost.io/c/fb/33/fb3391dc-723d-4e74-b95a-d641b5feb38e/content/images/2019/10/spotify.svg" class="kg-image" alt="Weekly Update 527: Cybergeddon News v. Reality"></a></div><div style="width: 120px; display: inline-block;"><a href="https://omny.fm/shows/troy-hunt-weekly-update/playlists/podcast.rss?ref=troy-hunt"><img src="https://storage.ghost.io/c/fb/33/fb3391dc-723d-4e74-b95a-d641b5feb38e/content/images/2018/07/Download-via-RSS.svg" alt="Weekly Update 527: Cybergeddon News v. Reality"></a></div><iframe width="100%" height="480" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/KD4pdhOK17g" title="YouTube video player" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen loading="lazy" spellcheck="false"></iframe></div> <!--kg-card-end: html-->
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Cached at: 10/28/26, 01:53 AM

# Weekly Update 527: Cybergeddon News v. Reality Source: [https://www.troyhunt.com/weekly-update-527/](https://www.troyhunt.com/weekly-update-527/) As the news from last week has settled down, it would seem this headline was pretty spot on\. The foretold apocalypse didn't eventuate, and there were no internet\-destroying outages\. In fact, it took days before I could find a single story of PHP2Shell being reliably attributed back to a breach\. And I don't think we can say the relatively benign outcome was only achieved because we*did*take it so seriously either; there's a massive trove of sites out there that have been left to rot and would have every opportunity to be pwned by a bug of this magnitude*that was readily exploitable*, yet here we are\. Which is good 🙂 [![Listen on Apple Podcasts](https://storage.ghost.io/c/fb/33/fb3391dc-723d-4e74-b95a-d641b5feb38e/content/images/2018/05/Listen-on-Apple-Podcasts.svg)](https://itunes.apple.com/au/podcast/troy-hunts-weekly-update-podcast/id1176454699?ref=troy-hunt) [![Watch and Listen on YouTube](https://storage.ghost.io/c/fb/33/fb3391dc-723d-4e74-b95a-d641b5feb38e/content/images/2024/09/Watch-and-Listen-on-YouTube.svg)](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL7LAAxaabizMAXnJe0s3xjQ30q12EVmjt&ref=troyhunt.com) [![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/fb/33/fb3391dc-723d-4e74-b95a-d641b5feb38e/content/images/2019/10/spotify.svg)](https://open.spotify.com/show/7jMtKFohdrw6qmz8AkLqit?ref=troy-hunt) [![Download via RSS](https://storage.ghost.io/c/fb/33/fb3391dc-723d-4e74-b95a-d641b5feb38e/content/images/2018/07/Download-via-RSS.svg)](https://omny.fm/shows/troy-hunt-weekly-update/playlists/podcast.rss?ref=troy-hunt) [Weekly update](https://www.troyhunt.com/tag/weekly-update/)

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