Infosecurity-Magazine Chinese Actor Compromises US Government Networks via PHP2Shell Exploit
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- •Suspected Chinese actors exploited critical vulnerabilities in Palo Alto Networks firewalls.
- •The attack targeted 25 servers, including US government-affiliated networks.
- •CISA has listed the vulnerabilities as actively exploited, urging immediate patching.
A suspected Chinese nation-state actor exploited vulnerabilities in Palo Alto Networks firewalls using a chained PHP2Shell exploit and a Linux kernel privilege escalation flaw. The attack, which began on October 23, targeted 25 servers across the US, Japan, Taiwan, and South Korea, with a focus on US government-affiliated networks. The attackers gained root access and launched an Active Directory attack campaign shortly after compromising the firewalls. The vulnerabilities exploited include CVE-2026-109618 and CVE-2026-109619, both rated critical with a CVSS of 9.2. Palo Alto Networks confirmed that only 0.02% of its global installed base was affected, and the company is urging customers to apply patches immediately. The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) has added the vulnerabilities to its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog. The attackers utilized AI tools like DeepSeek and Kimi to enhance their exploitation capabilities.
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China-Linked Hackers Exploit PHP2Shell Vulnerabilities to Breach U.S. Government Systems On October 21, 2026, the PHP development team released patches for two critical vulnerabilities in PHP, known as PHP2Shell (CVE-2026-109618 and CVE-2026-109619), which allow unauthenticated remote code execution. These vulnerabilities were actively exploited by a suspected China-linked threat actor who compromised 25… 
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