hosting problem

[digif]

We can see in the logs that the serverload was normal until around 23:15:
...
10:50:03 PM 0 271 1.54 1.52 1.34
11:00:01 PM 11 228 1.20 2.02 1.87
11:10:01 PM 6 232 2.07 1.75 1.80
11:22:25 PM 0 712 46.38 55.42 34.00
Average: 4 213 1.48 1.55 1.38
...

Then it jumped up to over 55 which is very high - below 5 is normal. Over 60 and the server will go down.

I can see alot of processes like theese was running:
...
User:beneamat PID:22711 Run Time:190(secs) Memory:133760(kb) exe:/usr/bin/php cmd:/usr/bin/php /home/beneamat/public_html/member.php
User:beneamat PID:22716 Run Time:188(secs) Memory:134284(kb) exe:/usr/bin/php cmd:/usr/bin/php /home/beneamat/public_html/misc.php
User:beneamat PID:22718 Run Time:188(secs) Memory:134284(kb) exe:/usr/bin/php cmd:/usr/bin/php /home/beneamat/public_html/misc.php
User:beneamat PID:22723 Run Time:184(secs) Memory:133772(kb) exe:/usr/bin/php cmd:/usr/bin/php /home/beneamat/public_html/misc.php
User:beneamat PID:22724 Run Time:184(secs) Memory:133772(kb) exe:/usr/bin/php cmd:/usr/bin/php /home/beneamat/public_html/misc.php
User:beneamat PID:22727 Run Time:184(secs) Memory:133768(kb) exe:/usr/bin/php cmd:/usr/bin/php /home/beneamat/public_html/misc.php
User:beneamat PID:22730 Run Time:184(secs) Memory:133752(kb) exe:/usr/bin/php cmd:/usr/bin/php /home/beneamat/public_html/index.php
User:beneamat PID:22731 Run Time:184(secs) Memory:133768(kb) exe:/usr/bin/php cmd:/usr/bin/php /home/beneamat/public_html/misc.php
User:beneamat PID:22732 Run Time:184(secs) Memory:133772(kb) exe:/usr/bin/php cmd:/usr/bin/php /home/beneamat/public_html/misc.php
User:beneamat PID:22748 Run Time:178(secs) Memory:133776(kb) exe:/usr/bin/php cmd:/usr/bin/php /home/beneamat/public_html/misc.php
User:beneamat PID:22768 Run Time:172(secs) Memory:133772(kb) exe:/usr/bin/php cmd:/usr/bin/php /home/beneamat/public_html/misc.php
....

The above is just an example of at least 60 processes with the same name (misc.php) that was running at the same time.

But all looks ok now - so I guess it was Your script that couldn't handle to many visitors.

Can this be true? What to do to prevent it next time?