Gerwyn retweeted
Security called me at 6:12 AM today.
"Patch every PHP server immediately."
I asked what happened.
"Two critical vulnerabilities. Remote code execution. No authentication required."
Cool.
How many PHP servers do we have?
According to inventory: 12
According to reality:
Nobody knows.
We found one running WordPress.
Three running old internal tools.
One under someone's desk.
Two inside vendor appliances.
A forgotten employee directory from 2016.
And a server named:
PHP-OLD-DO-NOT-TOUCH
Naturally, that one runs payroll exports.
Then we found a PHP 5.6 box.
I asked who owned it.
The documentation said:
BRIAN.
Brian left in 2019.
We called Brian.
He said:
"Oh wow, that's still running?"
Excellent.
By 8 AM, leadership joined the incident call.
CEO:
"Can hackers actually get in?"
Security:
"Potentially yes."
CEO:
"Without a password?"
Security:
"Yes."
CEO:
"Then why do WE need passwords?"
Not the lesson.
Finance asked if we could wait until the weekend to patch because downtime affects revenue.
Security explained that the alternative was letting strangers execute code on our servers.
Finance asked for a cost comparison.
At 9:17, someone suggested temporarily taking the vulnerable websites offline.
Marketing refused.
"Our campaign is live."
So for the next hour, the company officially decided maintaining a landing page for 20% off webinar registration was more important than preventing remote server takeover.
We finally patched everything we could find.
Then our scanner discovered another PHP server.
Hostname:
TEMP-PHP-2014
Uptime:
4,512 days.
Nobody knows what it does.
Nobody owns it.
Nobody can shut it down.
But every time we block network access, the warehouse stops printing shipping labels.
Security has classified it as critical infrastructure.
It is running PHP 5.4.
The vulnerability has existed longer than half our employees.
The emergency patch took four hours.
Finding out what PHP actually runs took eleven.
The internet isn't held together with code.
It's held together with servers everyone is afraid to turn off.
Gerwyn retweeted
The queues for this new digital entry/exit system in European airports should be split into 2 based on whether you can use a supermarket self checkout. No reason for me to wait 2 hours because Doreen and Keith can't follow basic on-screen instructions.
Hey @LidlGB can you give an update on the fix?
3 months later and still has errors. This is really embarrassing.
It should read ‘mae un o’n cydweithwyr..”
@LidlGB heya, mae dy tiliau yn chwythyg yng Ngymraeg.
Your tills have random characters in Welsh.
Also at the Lidl plus screen, in Welsh is shouts in English.
Pretty please can you review & fix? Diolch :)
Gerwyn retweeted
✅Hope HAS WON!
💪Only the GREENS can take on Farage
🇬🇧 Politics has changed forever
🪠Hannah the Plumber is now Hannah Spencer the MP for Gorton and Denton!
🐝 The FIRST NORTHERN GREEN MP
🥀Labour have been replaced
🚫Reform's rise has been halted. Hate has been defeated.
