: PHP 5.6.40 reached the end of its security support on December 31, 2018. Any vulnerabilities discovered after this date remain unpatched by the official PHP team. Vulnerability Statistics
Do not fall into the trap of simply monitoring the "vulnerabilities link." The link is a tombstone. Every month that you serve PHP 5.6.40 to the public internet, you are betting that no attacker will click the exploit link before you click the upgrade button.
Upgrading to a newer PHP version is essential for maintaining the security and integrity of your website. Some of the benefits of upgrading include:
: Flaws in functions like gd_interpolation.c could allow remote attackers to cause unspecified impacts through crafted image data.
PHP 5.6.40 was the last community release of a dead branch. Any version before it is exposed to at least seven critical exploits, and 5.6.40 itself is still vulnerable to every bug discovered after January 2019. The window for safe continued operation has closed.
Upgrading can reduce server load and improve website speed drastically, which is critical for SEO.
Because 5.6.40 is the final version of an unsupported branch, any vulnerabilities discovered after its release remain in official builds. Significant threats include: PHP 5.6: Why you should upgrade - Influential Software
Fixed CVE-2019-9020 and CVE-2019-9024 , closing heap out-of-bounds reads during data decoding.
Attackers can exploit flaws in older PHP versions to execute arbitrary code on the server, gaining full control over the website and underlying infrastructure.
