Final Fantasy XIV Security Downtime and Compensation

Sometimes I really feel spoiled when I compare EVE Online to Final Fantasy XIV. One of the big things is server downtime. Yes, EVE requires a daily downtime period and FFXIV can stay running for days, if not weeks, at a time. But when maintenance is required, the downtime can extend to a full day. For example, when patch 7.57 was installed two weeks ago, the scheduled maintenance was for 24 hour. Then the follow-up maintenance last Monday lasted 6 hours.

Sometimes, though, emergencies happen. Last Wednesday the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) put out a warning about a vulnerability with PHP. 

CISA strongly urges organizations to immediately patch the recently disclosed critical vulnerabilities in PHP, CVE-2026-109618 and CVE-2026-109619. These vulnerabilities, known as “php2shell,” allow for unauthenticated remote code execution in PHP. The vulnerabilities affect all PHP installations serving web requests, including Apache with mod_php (Note: PHP considers this highest risk), PHP-FPM, php-cgi, FrankenPHP and LiteSpeed. Organizations should immediately update to PHP 8.5.12, 8.4.27, 8.3.36, or 8.2.35 to fix these vulnerabilities. While CISA has not observed successful exploitation of these vulnerabilities in the wild as of the time of publication, they pose a risk to organizations if left unpatched.

I turned to Gemini to help explain the risks.

Why It Caused Worldwide Disruption

Massive Blast Radius: Because PHP powers roughly 70–75% of all web servers (including WordPress, Drupal, MediaWiki, and enterprise web APIs), nearly every PHP runtime exposed to the internet was vulnerable. Installations running Apache with mod_php were designated as the highest-risk setup.  

Precautionary Outages: Multiple telecommunications firms (including Orange), enterprise hosting providers, and government agencies (including dozens of UK public digital services) temporarily suspended external portals or isolated PHP-dependent servers while deploying patches.   

Global Patch Urgency: Cyber defense agencies worldwide—including the US CISA, CERT-EU, and Canada's Cyber Centre—issued urgent directives advising organizations to patch immediately or disconnect unpatched internet-facing PHP services.   

Perhaps three links in the above were overkill. But logging into Final Fantasy XIV was affected for nearly 28 hours. The downtime is resulting in compensation.

Regarding the response to a critical vulnerability in the PHP programming language, we were forced to unexpectedly suspend new logins for approximately one day from Oct. 21 to Oct. 22, 2026. We apologize for the inconvenience caused.

Although this was an urgent security measure, in consideration of the fact that we were unable to provide advance notice and that the suspension lasted for an extended period, we would like to grant one day of game time to the following customers.

Eligible Accounts: FINAL FANTASY XIV service accounts that meet the following conditions:

・The full version of FINAL FANTASY XIV has been registered to the service account.

・The service account had an active subscription as of Oct. 21, 2026 or Oct. 22, 2026 (PDT).

Grant Period: One day of game time

・For accounts with recurring subscription payments, the subscription end date at the time the game time is granted will be extended by one day. 　

* Paid optional services, such as additional retainer subscriptions, will also be extended by one day.

・For accounts without recurring subscription payments, one day of game time will be added.

Grant Timing: To be granted sequentially from Oct. 28, 2026 12:00 a.m. (PDT)

・Due to the large number of eligible service accounts, the process is expected to take two to three days to complete.

*The above compensation applies to services in the global version. Because the impact on logins and applicable laws vary by region, the availability of compensation and the number of days granted for the emergency response to the vulnerability in the PHP programming language will differ depending on the operating region.

We sincerely apologize for the inconvenience caused.

Admittedly the downtime put be behind my planned pace in my Cosmic Exploration mount grind. But I don't think I can complain about how Yoshi-P and Square Enix handled the situation. Sometimes things need taken care of quickly. And I'd rather be inconvenienced this way than if a hacker was able to exploit the vulnerability.