Websites have been taken down worldwide after critical weaknesses were revealed in a programming language which powers much of the internet. Governments and agencies are urging websites to address the problem immediately.
The vulnerabilities were found within the PHP programming language. The flaws were discovered by AI, with cyber-security experts saying are were the most severe vulnerabilities ever discovered by the technology, which is reshaping the cyber security landscape.
The US National Security Agency issued a warning for organisations to take their systems offline if they are unable to immediately apply a fix, which has now been issued. The governments of France and Finland were among those ordering shut down of some web services, along with many private organisations around the world. Japan’s prime minister urged people to check if their publicly accessible websites ran on PHP.
The vulnerabilities were discovered by cyber-security researchers at the firms Calif and Wiz and were part of a program started by the internet firm OpenAI, called Patch the Planet. They discovered the issue after being given access to the AI company’s advanced AI tools, in order to find and fix flaws in web development language.
OpenAi said the discovery was “one of the most impactful security issues in recent memory”. The flaws had gone undetected for more than a decade. It’s estimated that around 70% of the internet could be vulnerable to the threat.
It had been intended to release details of the issue later this month along with a fix, or software patch, or the problem. However details of the flaw were leaked on social media, forcing PHP Foundation to rush out an announcement of the vulnerability and its huge scale.
Jane Hill presents BBC News at Ten reporting by Joe Tidy.
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