PHP: What is it and why did it spark a global cyber security scramble?
A critical security vulnerability in the PHP programming language, which powers 70% of the internet, has triggered a global cybersecurity alert. Researchers used AI to uncover the flaws, prompting urgent calls for website operators to apply emergency patches.
Why it matters
Because PHP is foundational to a vast portion of the web, this vulnerability poses a massive risk to global digital infrastructure and data security.
Figure caption, How did AI discover the internet's massive cyber-security risk?
For more than a decade, serious flaws had gone undetected in the technology underpinning much of the internet.
It took AI to bring them to light and caused a global cyber-security alert.
The vulnerabilities lie within a programming language called PHP, which has been used internationally since the 2000s to build websites.
Governments and cyber-security agencies around the world are scrambling to contain the fallout of the discovery on Wednesday, and have urged website operators to install a new emergency fix or consider taking their platforms offline.
Cyber-security firm Wiz - one of the companies whose researchers uncovered the vulnerabilities - described the flaws as the "most severe" ever detected by AI.
OpenAI, whose technology was used to find the flaws, called the discovery "one of the most impactful security issues in recent memory".
Headlinne story · 7 newsrooms
Global Websites Go Dark After AI Uncovers Critical Programming Language Flaws
What every outlet reported, where they differ, and how each framed it →
Get smarter about the news
Sign up free for a feed built around what you actually care about, Dive Deeper research on any story, and the full text of every article.
Create free accountAlready have an account? Sign in