The IT Week — PHP2Shell: two critical PHP flaws already under attack, the right to repair is law in Italy from 22 October, and how to find out what is filling your Windows RAM

📰 News of the week: PHP2Shell, two critical PHP flaws already targeted by attacks

On 21 October the team that develops PHP, the language behind a huge number of websites and business apps (including those built with WordPress, Drupal and Joomla), released fixes for two critical flaws nicknamed PHP2Shell (CVE-2026-109618 and CVE-2026-109619). They let an attacker run commands remotely on the server, in other words take control of it. The details leaked before the planned date, so the release was brought forward.

According to Amazon the first attack attempts date from Saturday 17 October, four days before the fixes, and AWS's security chief says the flaws are now «broadly exploited in the wild». Dataminr is more cautious: so far it has mostly seen scanning and attempts that do not work, with no known compromises. VirusTotal counts more than 5.1 million PHP servers reachable from the Internet. The UK's National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) asks organisations to update immediately or take the server offline until they can.

In Italy, according to Check Point Software (figures reported by Punto Informatico on 23 October), about 10% of organisations are potentially exposed, against 14% in Europe: these are estimates, not confirmed breaches. What to do: if you have a website or business app, ask whoever looks after it, or your hosting provider, one thing: «has PHP been updated since 21 October?». Waiting is a bad idea: this week showed that attacks can start before the announcement.

♻️ Refurbished world: the right to repair is in force in Italy from 22 October

From 22 October the decree (Legislative Decree no. 176 of 25 September 2026, published in the Official Gazette on 7 October) implementing the European directive on the right to repair is in force, about two months late. It applies to purchases made from 31 July 2026 and covers, among others, smartphones, tablets, TVs and screens, vacuum cleaners, washing machines, fridges, servers and data storage systems.

In practice: the manufacturer must repair a repairable product even after the legal warranty, free of charge or at a reasonable price; if you choose repair during the warranty, the warranty is extended by one year; spare parts must be supplied at reasonable prices and the use of second-hand, compatible or 3D-printed parts cannot be blocked. A European form is provided, stating the defect, price and time of the repair, valid for 30 days. Penalties range from EUR 5,000 to 50,000 per violation, enforced by the AGCM.

The part that matters to us: if repair is not possible, the manufacturer may offer a refurbished product, and by 31 July 2027 a European online platform is due to help people find repairers and refurbished sellers. For a company the message is simple: extending the life of devices pays off, and now the law backs it up. Assoutenti points out that disposing of repairable products generates about 35 million tonnes of waste a year in Europe.

🪟 Windows tip: find out what is using your computer's RAM

Does Windows seem to «eat» RAM? Finding out who is using it is easy. First step, built into Windows: press Ctrl + Shift + Esc to open Task Manager, go to the Processes tab and click the Memory header to put the heaviest programs on top. If one you are not using takes a lot, close it.

To dig deeper there is RAMMap, a free Microsoft tool (Sysinternals suite, by Mark Russinovich): it weighs 719 KB and can be downloaded, or run on the spot without installing, from Microsoft's official page. It works on Windows Vista and later. It shows how Windows assigns RAM: how much programs use, how much it keeps as a copy of files (the «cache») and how much goes to the system and drivers. The Use Counts tab gives the summary, Processes shows how much each program takes.

Two cautions: download RAMMap only from Microsoft's official site, never from third-party sites; and if your computer is chronically slow, the answer is usually more RAM or an SSD, not an «optimizer» program. It is not news of the week (the Microsoft page dates from 26 March 2026), but HDblog highlighted it on 24 October and it is a good tip to keep handy.