Millions of hacking attempts as companies, governments rush to patch PHP flaws
Developers said AI helped uncover flaws that could let hackers seize web servers, while Cloudflare reported millions of exploit attempts.
- 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.
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85 Articles
Tech Teams Race Against Time to Patch Massive Flaw Across Global Websites
A massive digital fire drill is unfolding across the globe. Security engineers and website administrators are working through the night to patch critical bugs. The flaws target PHP, the coding engine behind roughly 70% of known websites. If left unpatched, bad actors could seize total control of vulnerable web servers. The discovered flaws earned a critical severity score of 9.2 out of 10. They allow unauthenticated remote code execution. That m…
Channel News Asia
PressNewsAgencyFive ways to keep safe online in the wake of AI-supercharged hacking
(Refiles to add dropped words "unsolicited links" in SCAMMERS section)By AJ VicensOct 22 : Much of the world woke Wednesday to news that PHP, a coding language most people have never heard of but that underlies roughly 70 per cent of all websites, had a hackable vulnerability, sending businesses and
The "backbone of the web" was shaken yesterday. The publication of two serious vulnerabilities in PHP, the programming language on which 70% of the internet's web pages are based, has shaken governments, companies and users around the world. After administrations in multiple countries have decided to stop the service of many of their pages while waiting for the update that was supposed to solve the two problems, attempts to exploit these weaknes…
After a security hole was found in PHP, a very popular software on web servers, attempts to attack and the request for agencies across the planet to install security patches grew as soon as possible
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