This is the news from Friday 23 October. Read the latest news
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PHP2Shell attacks came early, Chrome’s HTTP prompt and more
Today in 30 seconds
- PHP2Shell attacks began four days before PHP’s patches
- Chrome now asks before every insecure HTTP connection
- Cloudflare’s WAF now checks your server’s replies, even on Free
- eMudhra quits the SSL certificate business after its key leak
- WooCommerce 11.3 moves its AI connection to the WordPress MCP Adapter
- Cloudflare switches on WebMCP for nearly 100,000 Commerce.com stores
- Walmart opens its store to AI shopping agents
- Anthropic’s Claude Duet is an agent that works while you sleep
- Google: robots.txt controls crawling, not what AI does after
- Google Images and Discover don’t support JPEG XL yet
- Study: ChatGPT sends less than 1% of Google’s traffic
- Apple adds a “Made for iPhone Duo” label to the App Store
Good morning. I’m putting PHP2Shell on top again, because attacks started before the fix existed. After that, it’s a big day for the web’s plumbing. Chrome gets stricter about plain HTTP, Cloudflare’s firewall now reads replies too, and AI shopping agents are knocking on store doors.
PHP2Shell attacks began four days before PHP’s patches
Amazon says attackers tried the PHP2Shell flaws on 17 October. PHP only released fixes four days later, on 21 October. Its threat team now says the two flaws, CVE-2026-109618 and CVE-2026-109619, are “now being broadly exploited in the wild”. Both are rated 9.2. The fixed versions are PHP 8.5.12, 8.4.27, 8.3.36 and 8.2.35.
A proof of concept went public about 12 hours before the official disclosure. The PHP team says the early public exploits did not work, and it is unclear how many attacks succeeded. AWS says upgrading is the only complete fix. If you must wait, it suggests blocking multipart uploads.
Why it matters If you patched yesterday, good. But your site may have been probed before that. Check your logs from 17 October, not from the patch date. I would. Look for POST requests containing PHP_SESSION_UPLOAD_PROGRESS, a burst of 500 errors, memory limit errors and odd worker restarts.
I’d ask your host two things if you’re on shared hosting: is the patched PHP live, and did they see any of these signs? On your own server, restart every PHP process after the update. Distribution packages can carry the fix under an older version number, so read the package changelog.
Chrome now asks before every insecure HTTP connection
Google said on 21 October that Chrome now asks users for permission before it loads a site over plain HTTP. The prompt was only on for Enhanced Protection users earlier this year. Now it is on by default for everyone. Chrome asks once per site, and again only if the user hasn’t visited for two weeks or more.
Single-word host names and local IP addresses are left out by default. Google says nearly 95% of desktop users saw no warning in a given week, because most of the web already uses HTTPS.
Why it matters Any page, image or form still on http:// now puts a scary question in front of your visitors. Redirect every HTTP address to HTTPS and check old links in emails, QR codes and printed menus. My curl redirect guide shows a quick way to test this.
Cloudflare’s WAF now checks your server’s replies, even on Free
Cloudflare launched “full transaction detection” on 21 October. Its web application firewall now checks each request together with your server’s response. A response rule can swap out a bad reply before it reaches the visitor. The first managed protections cover PHP2Shell.
It is live for all proxied sites. Free plans get three custom response rules plus managed checks for big, well-known flaws. Paid plans get a wider set. Cloudflare is clear about one limit: a response rule can’t undo something your server has already done.
Why it matters This can catch an attack that only shows up in the reply. Think of an error page full of server details. Look under Security, then Security Rules, and check what it finds in Security Analytics. New to Cloudflare? Start with my Cloudflare 101 guide.
eMudhra quits the SSL certificate business after its key leak
Certificate company eMudhra said on 22 October that it will leave the global SSL/TLS certificate business. Earlier this week, Cloudflare said the private keys for eight eMudhra intermediate certificates were compromised. eMudhra says it revoked them within 14 hours and that no website certificates were issued from them.
Certificates already issued stay valid until they expire or are replaced. eMudhra says it will replace affected certificates free through partners, and it will contact customers. No dates were given.
Why it matters Most small sites use Let’s Encrypt or their host’s free certificate, so you are probably fine. If your certificate came from eMudhra, plan a replacement now rather than waiting for the email. And never fix a certificate error by turning off verification. Cloudflare warns against exactly that.
WooCommerce 11.3 moves its AI connection to the WordPress MCP Adapter
WooCommerce explained on 21 October how version 11.3 changes MCP, the standard that lets AI tools talk to your store. The old /wp-json/woocommerce/mcp endpoint is removed and now returns an HTTP 410 error. Product and order abilities stay on by default, but they now need the WordPress MCP Adapter plugin.
The bundled packages are gone because the Abilities API ships in WordPress 7.0. No release date for 11.3 was given.
Why it matters If you connect Claude, ChatGPT or another AI tool to your store, it will break after the update unless you act. Install the MCP Adapter plugin first. Then make an application password for a user with as few rights as possible. Point your AI tool at /wp-json/mcp/mcp-adapter-default-server. Then revoke old REST API keys you no longer use.
Cloudflare switches on WebMCP for nearly 100,000 Commerce.com stores
Commerce.com has turned on WebMCP across its stores, Cloudflare said on 21 October. WebMCP is a proposed browser standard from Google. It gives AI agents a tidy list of actions on a page, like search or add to cart. They no longer have to guess from the layout.
Cloudflare adds a script at the edge, so merchants don’t change anything. Owners can turn it off with a switch in the Commerce.com dashboard. The shopper still finishes checkout themselves. WebMCP is still experimental in Chrome.
Why it matters This is the first time WebMCP runs at real scale. If AI agents start to shop, stores with clean, clear actions will be easier for them to use. I’m watching this one closely, but there’s nothing to install yet on WordPress or Shopify.
Walmart opens its store to AI shopping agents
Walmart has launched Agent Gateway, an MCP server that lets approved AI agents search its stock and buy for shoppers, TechCrunch reported on 21 October. Partners include Meta’s Muse, ChatGPT and Gemini. It covers Walmart and Sam’s Club.
Next month, Agent Profiles give each agent its own profile in the customer’s account. Shoppers can approve each purchase or set a spending limit. Agents can’t see payment details. Amazon, by contrast, is blocking agents from buying.
Why it matters Big retailers are picking sides on AI shoppers. For a smaller store, the lesson is to keep product data clean and complete: names, prices, stock and sizes. That’s what agents read first.
Anthropic’s Claude Duet is an agent that works while you sleep
Anthropic announced Claude Duet on 21 October. It is a proactive agent app in research preview on iOS, Android and claude.ai. It sends a morning brief, checks your connected accounts every few hours, and handles tasks like scheduling, dashboards and small web apps. It runs in its own virtual machine with a browser, so your devices can be off.
Access starts with a waitlist for US Pro and Max subscribers. There’s no extra price, but its background checks count toward your usage limits. It must ask before it sends messages, pays, signs or deletes anything. It connects to tools like Gmail, Slack, Stripe, HubSpot and Shopify.
Why it matters Agents like this will soon log in to your store and admin tools on your behalf. Give them their own accounts with limited rights. My guide on sharing store logins safely applies to AI helpers too.
Google: robots.txt controls crawling, not what AI does after
In a new video covered on 21 October, Google’s Gary Illyes said robots.txt only controls crawl access. “It doesn’t dictate what a system does with the data after it has already crawled it,” he said. To block an AI crawler, you must name its own user agent token.
User agent tokens may only use letters and dashes, so emoji tokens fail. Google also advises you to percent-encode international characters and emoji in rule paths.
Why it matters A single “block all AI” line doesn’t exist. List each AI crawler by name if you want it out. My post on how AI search finds your site lists the main ones.
Google Images and Discover don’t support JPEG XL yet
Google Images and Discover previews don’t support JPEG XL, Search Engine Journal reported on 21 October. Google’s list covers BMP, GIF, JPEG, PNG, WebP, SVG and AVIF. Chrome 155 and Firefox 158 started rolling out JPEG XL this month, so many people are trying it.
John Mueller says serving JPEG XL inside a <picture> element with an <img> fallback works for search engines.
Why it matters Don’t swap all your images to JPEG XL. Keep an AVIF, WebP or JPEG fallback so Google can still show your pictures. My image speed guide shows the <picture> pattern.
Study: ChatGPT sends less than 1% of Google’s traffic
A new study by Marie Haynes of 100 sites and over 145 million sessions found ChatGPT sent 0.62% as many visits as Google organic search. ChatGPT visitors did convert better, at 13.8% against 3.02%. But Google still drove 27 times more conversions than all AI chatbots together.
A second study by SEO Works found organic search sent 39 times more traffic than AI assistants.
Why it matters AI answers get the headlines, but Google still pays the bills. I’d keep classic SEO first and treat AI visits as a small, high-quality bonus.
Apple adds a “Made for iPhone Duo” label to the App Store
Apps built with the iOS 27.1 SDK or later can earn a “Made for iPhone Duo” label, MacRumors reported on 22 October. Apps built with the iOS 26 SDK or earlier run in the centre of the big inner screen, with empty space on both sides. The iPhone Duo goes on sale on Friday 23 October.
Apple named 21 ready apps and games, including Zoom, Slack, Things, Bear and Instagram. Word and Outlook get desktop-class versions within a few weeks.
Why it matters If you have an app, rebuild with the new SDK soon. For websites, the inner screen is about tablet width, so test your layout at tablet sizes.
Quick hits
- GitHub CLI 2.103.0 can use expiring, auto-refreshing tokens. Opt in with
gh auth login --expiring. GitHub Changelog - Vercel Routing Middleware now supports Python, including FastAPI, Flask and Django. Vercel
- Google Discover uses a “SDF” filter that drops stale or replaced content before ranking, a Google paper shows. Search Engine Journal
- Google reworded its URL guide but still prefers hyphens over underscores between words. Search Engine Roundtable
- Recursive Flint is a free, open coding model that runs offline on a laptop. TechCrunch
- 1Password for Agents lets AI agents use your logins without seeing the passwords. Engadget
- Google Maps on CarPlay now has Gemini for voice questions while you drive, starting in the US. 9to5Google
- Apple Music gets a new logo “made by sound” in iOS 27.2 next week. 9to5Mac
You're all caught up
That's today's web, tech and SEO news. The next edition lands tomorrow morning, around 3 am Melbourne time.That was the news from Friday 23 October. A newer edition is waiting for you.
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That’s you caught up. Not sure if your host patched PHP in time, or what your logs are telling you? My site updates service can check it for you. And if you want your store ready for AI shoppers, my SEO service starts with clean product data. See you tomorrow.
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