Government websites go dark after AI-discovered flaw sparks security scramble
- On Wednesday, October 21, 2026, researchers led by OpenAI revealed two critical PHP security flaws nicknamed "PHP2SHELL," which carry a 9.2 severity rating and affect software powering around 70 per cent of the internet.
- OpenAI President Greg Brockman stated the bug existed for 14 years; his team spent two months coordinating fixes with PHP maintainers and security firm Wiz before an early leak forced an immediate release.
- As websites like Wikipedia and government portals in France, Finland, and the Netherlands went offline for patching, Japan issued a public appeal urging site owners to install fixes immediately.
- Coordinating with Government agencies including the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, OpenAI has committed $1 billion toward subsidized access to security tools for organizations protecting essential services.
- Brockman warned that current manual security methods are "slow and manual" and will not scale as AI capabilities improve, with the company expecting similar discoveries to rise sharply in coming months.
526 Articles
526 Articles
European government websites go dark after AI-discovered flaw sparks security scramble
Government websites in Europe and elsewhere went offline on Wednesday after the disclosure of critical vulnerabilities in a widely used programming language sent website operators around the world scrambling to protect their systems.Developers of the PHP programming language on Wednesday released urgent new fixes to vulnerabilities that had quietly been lurking in their software for years until they were uncovered using AI, saying that all users…
Most of the internet is suddenly melting down, and there's only one fix
The internet isn’t safe. That’s the warning going around the world today, as two newly discovered vulnerabilities instantaneously made the majority of websites susceptible to targeted attacks. This isn’t a problem that impacts one site or service. It’s a global phenomenon, and you should be prepared for what happens next.On October 20, the discovery was leaked online of two PHP vulnerabilities, dubbed CVE-2026-109618 and CVE-2026-109619. Togethe…
Thousands of websites, including those of several governments in Europe and other parts of the world, were taken offline on Wednesday as a precautionary measure against the risk of cyberattacks. This happened after two serious vulnerabilities were disclosed in PHP, a programming language used by a large part of the internet pages around the world. This has forced the administrators of numerous websites to take urgent measures to protect their sy…
Public institution websites in several European countries have been preventively taken offline after two critical PHP vulnerabilities were discovered. Cybercriminals are already exploiting these vulnerabilities to take control of websites. PHP is used by more than two-thirds of websites on the internet.
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