Canadian organizations urged to address web programming vulnerability
Canadian government websites were temporarily taken offline to address critical security vulnerabilities in the PHP programming language. Cybersecurity officials warn that AI is increasingly being used to discover such flaws, necessitating faster patching and more resilient risk management.
Why it matters
The incident underscores the growing 'arms race' between hackers and defenders as AI accelerates the discovery of software vulnerabilities, threatening global digital infrastructure.
The website for Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada was temporarily offline for 'urgent maintenance' on Wednesday after vulnerabilities were identified in PHP, a programming language used to run websites around the world. Taehoon Kim/The Globe and Mail
The discovery of critical security vulnerabilities affecting a widely used programming language led to many global government websites going dark on Wednesday, and the head of Canada’s government cybersecurity agency warns many more flaws will be found as artificial intelligence continues to develop.
The Canadian Centre for Cyber Security on Wednesday instructed organizations to immediately make updates addressing serious flaws in PHP, an open-source programming language used to run websites, adding that applications that can’t immediately be fixed should be temporarily taken offline.
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