AI Just Found a Bug That Puts Up to 70% of the World’s Websites at Risk
- On Wednesday, October 21, organizations worldwide scrambled to address two critical PHP vulnerabilities dubbed PHP2Shell after premature online disclosure forced the PHP Foundation to release security updates ahead of schedule.
- Researchers at Wiz and Calif independently identified the flaws using advanced AI tools in August, coordinating with the PHP Foundation to address code issues persisting for more than a decade.
- The vulnerabilities, tracked as CVE-2026-109618 and CVE-2026-109619, could allow attackers to remotely execute code or access sensitive server memory, potentially impacting roughly 70% of websites worldwide.
- Several services, including Japan's Finance Ministry and the Wikimedia Foundation, went offline Wednesday as a precaution, while cybersecurity agencies CERT-EU and CERT-In advised immediate patching of vulnerable systems.
- Sophos Counter Threat Unit's Don Smith warned that "threat actors move fast, especially with the help of AI," noting legacy appliances often act as a 'black box' difficult to patch or replace.
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Websites go offline after AI uncovers critical flaw in PHP code that powers up to 70% of sites worldwide
Government portals, hospital resources, and school websites went dark today after an Artificial Intelligence (AI) researcher discovered a “critical security issue” in a programming language that provides the backbone for 70% of the world’s websites. The flaw could allow hackers to seize control of any web server.This would allow cybercriminals to run their own commands, known as a remote code execution (RCE) vulnerability. It's essentially an un…
Websites go dark after AI exposes programming language security flaw
Government agencies and companies around the world shut down websites Wednesday after two critical flaws came to light involving PHP, a programming language that is the basis for a large share of the internet.
Applications, government pages and various institutions on the internet using PHP programming language had to be removed while waiting for an update to correct critical vulnerabilities. The United States and the European Union have already issued warnings
Researchers using GPT-5.6 Sol have discovered the critical vulnerability of PHP2Shell, which can allow hackers to gain control of web servers.
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