Millions of hacking attempts as companies, governments rush to patch PHP flaws
Cloudflare said hacking attempts jumped from thousands before disclosure to millions after fixes were released, as attackers moved quickly against PHP sites.
- On Thursday, October 22, 2026, companies and governments worldwide rushed to patch critical PHP programming language vulnerabilities after AI uncovered flaws that had persisted for years.
- PHP powers nearly 70% of websites, including WordPress and Magento, making the vulnerabilities particularly dangerous. Developers released urgent fixes on Wednesday, urging all users to "update immediately."
- Cloudflare CEO Matthew Prince reported hacking attempts surged into the millions post-announcement. "In the 10 hours before it was publicly announced, across the network we saw thousands of attempts to exploit it," Prince said.
- Organizations from Tokyo to Helsinki temporarily suspended internet services as a precautionary measure, with Japanese entities ANA and Nomura, alongside Finland's state IT provider Valtori, halting operations.
- Valtori Director General Hannu Naumanen said restoring services "can take days or even weeks, as in addition to updates, the systems need to be carefully tested." Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella emphasized building secure, maintainable digital systems.
40 Articles
40 Articles
Bay News 9
Spectrum News 13Race to patch AI-discovered software flaw that could affect 70% of websites
Many government sites appeared to be working Thursday, but outages or limited service remained while security work was under way.
Millions of hacking attempts as companies, governments rush to patch PHP flaws
The emergency shutdowns of banking, airline, rail, tax and government services from Tokyo to Helsinki showed how much public and corporate systems rely on the software, and how hard it is to fix flaws quickly.
Cloudflare logs millions of exploit attempts after PHP vulnerability disclosure
Cloud services firm Cloudflare says it observed millions of exploitation attempts following the public disclosure of critical vulnerabilities in PHP, one of the most widely deployed web programming languages. The title indicates a rapid shift from...
Millions of Hack Attempts in Hours: Governments and Companies Disable Sites Due to PHP Vulnerability
Following the disclosure of critical PHP vulnerabilities, companies and governments are urgently updating systems and temporarily shutting down web services.
Coverage Details
Bias Distribution
- 52% of the sources are Center
Factuality
To view factuality data please Upgrade to Premium
