Security researchers have begun a month-long project to highlight security flaws in PHP, the popular scripting language.

The "Month of PHP Bugs", which began last Thursday, promises a bug a day for the month of March from the folks behind the Hardened-PHP Project.

Unlike the earlier Month of Browser Bugs and Month of Apple Bugs projects, which inspired the PHP initiative, the Month of PHP bugs will feature both old and new bugs as part of the overall goal of raising awareness about PHP-related security issues. The project will focus on security flaws involving the PHP core, not programming errors that might result in insecure applications.

Eleven bugs have been detailed thus far as part of the project, which aims to shake up the way bugs in the scripting language are handled. The bugs involve a range of flaws of varying seriousness (from simple denial of service to remote exploitation) along with proof of concept exploit code, in most cases.

"This initiative is an effort to improve the security of PHP," Stefan Esser, a noted PHP security expert explains. "During March 2007 old and new security vulnerabilities in the Zend Engine, the PHP core and the PHP extensions will be disclosed on a day by day basis. We will also point out necessary changes in the current vulnerability management process used by the PHP Security Response Team." ®