In a large announcement for the PHP community today, Zend has a pointer to the new PHP Security Consortium. Be sure to check out the announement over on Chris Shiflett's weblog today as well...

An international group of PHP experts today announced the official launch of the PHP Security Consortium (PHPSC), a group whose mission is to promote secure programming practices within the PHP community through education and exposition while maintaining high ethical standards.

"As PHP has transitioned from personal projects to enterprise application development, the need to educate the community about secure programming practices has risen," said Chris Shiflett, the group's founder.

[...] Founded in January 2005, the PHP Security Consortium (PHPSC) is an international group of PHP experts dedicated to promoting secure programming practices within the PHP community. Members of the PHPSC seek to educate PHP developers about security through a variety of resources, including documentation, tools, and standards.

This was definitely the next logical step for the community, especially with all of the focus lately on the security of PHP and how this consortium can help alleviate a lot of the PHP-related woes out on the 'net today...