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Do you know what your website or system runs on? On 21 October PHP released emergency fixes for two critical flaws that let an attacker run code on a server without logging in. Cloudflare and Amazon already report attack attempts. Node.js shipped its own security releases the same week. Every WordPress site runs on PHP. Updating WordPress or its plugins does not help here, because the flaws are in PHP itself. On a supported version the fix is a routine update to PHP 8.2.35, 8.3.36, 8.4.27 or 8.5.12, or Node.js 22.23.4, 24.22.1 or 26.12.1. Older versions are the harder case. PHP up to 8.1 and Node.js up to 20 no longer get releases, and the US cybersecurity agency CISA advises taking PHP systems on 8.1 or older offline until they are upgraded. Languages and frameworks publish the date their support ends. PHP 8.2 stops getting security updates on 31 December this year. A system that nobody has updated for a few years ends up on versions past that date, and often the owner learns it from a security fix the system can no longer get. Many owners we talk to would not know which versions their system is on. It was built years ago and works every day, and the developer who could answer has moved on. Moving off an old version takes more than one command. Code written for an older version often needs changes before it runs on a new one, so an upgrade needs planning. We start by checking what the system runs on and what depends on it. Then we update in steps and check after each one that orders and payments still go through. We have been building custom systems since 2005, and taking over systems someone else built is a normal part of that work. If you are not sure what your website or system runs on today, write to us at info@abz.agency and we will find out together.

Congratulations to our QA on 6 years at abz.agency! 🎉 There are people who check things. And there are people who really check things. He is the second kind. And honestly, that's one of the best things you can say about a QA 😄 He also has a habit we love: noticing what could be better, and then just going and doing it. That's how we got a PDP for test automation. He got interested, studied it on his own, and spent 3+ months putting it together. Now other QA engineers learn from it. And the story continues. This time it's QA documentation on one of our projects. His idea, his research. And we are moving to a more convenient, modern standard that works better with AI. 6 years in, and he's still finding things to make better. Congratulations! May our journey together keep going, with new ideas, new challenges, and new results to be proud of 😉

Do you know where your system lives? Many established businesses run on a web system someone built for them years ago. It takes the orders, makes the quotes, keeps the stock and the customer accounts. It works every day, so nobody asks questions about it. Then a question comes up. A form breaks on phones, or the owner wants a report the system never had. And it turns out nobody in the company knows where the source code is, whose account the hosting is on, or who last deployed a change. The developer who built it moved on, and the agency that took over stopped answering. The business depends on the system more than on any single employee, and nobody can change it. This is a common situation, and it is not a reason to throw the system away. We start by walking through the working system together with the owner, using the access the owner already has. From what the system does today we write down how it works and what the business needs it to do next. Only after that comes the decision: keep it and extend it, or rebuild it in stages. The documentation stays with the owner, so the business is never again tied to one person's memory. We have been building custom systems since 2005. Taking over a system someone else built is a normal part of that work. We are putting together a short self-check for owners on exactly these questions. Until it is ready, if you are not sure who controls your system today or where all the access is kept, write to us at info@abz.agency and we will help you find out.