PHP2Shell — Deep Dive
Summary
The PHP2Shell deep-dive provides a thorough, build-specific exploration of memory-corruption vulnerabilities in PHP, detailing a multi-stage exploitation chain. It covers how an out-of-memory bailout can leave a stale pointer, how a crafted sequence of HTTP requests can leak both heap and code pointers, and how forged heap structures can hijack PHP’s cleanup path to achieve remote code execution. The write-up also discusses real-world friction (deployment environments, ASLR, worker pools) and a public CTF used to validate the attack surface, with references to tooling and source material.