PHP2Shell update: services restored after precautionary security measures
· by Team Sebsoft B.V.
Our services are available again. Brief additional maintenance on our DirectAdmin servers will follow on 22 or 23 October, with a possible short interruption.
On 20 October, the PHP security team warned of two serious vulnerabilities, now known as PHP2Shell. Technical examples demonstrating how they could be exploited became public on 21 October, increasing the risk.
We therefore took our hosted customer environments temporarily offline as a precaution at around 12:00 on Wednesday 21 October. It was a difficult decision, made to protect customer environments and data while our technical team prioritised security updates and additional measures.
Services restored
Our services are now fully available again. Websites, Moodle sites and other applications hosted by us are back online. We previously informed our customers by email about the interruption and the restoration of service.
Additional DirectAdmin server maintenance
We expect to carry out one further short maintenance round on our DirectAdmin servers on Thursday 22 or Friday 23 October. Websites and applications on those servers may be briefly unavailable during the work. The exact time has not yet been set.
We recognise the impact of this interruption. Thank you for your patience and understanding.
More news
Moodle 5.3 LTS: where to look first when you upgrade
Moodle 5.3 gets security fixes until October 2029. If your Moodle site holds years of courses, look first at assessment and navigation when you upgrade. Dark mode is a nice experimental extra for enthusiasts, but most organisations have no reason to switch it on yet.
Scheduled Messages is in the Marketplace, and it is our first paid listing
Announcements with a start and end date, site-wide or inside a single course. It is also the first plugin we charge for, so we explain why, and what does not change.
Plivo SMS gateway published in the Moodle Marketplace
Our fourth SMS gateway for Moodle has been published. In all honesty: it has not been tested in production, because Plivo would not give us a test account. We are looking for someone who has one.