Critical Cyber-Security Flaw Hits Global Websites
A severe cyber-security flaw has been discovered in the PHP programming language, prompting a global response from governments and agencies. The vulnerability, which affects a significant portion of the internet, has led to a surge in hacking attempts, with millions of attempts reported on Cloudflare's network.
The PHP Foundation, a non-profit that maintains and develops the language, has released a patch to fix the issue, but the rapid spread of information about the flaw has caused widespread panic in the cyber world. Researchers at Wiz and OpenAI used AI to discover the vulnerability, which they described as a "complex chain of steps" that was difficult for human researchers to achieve.
The flaw, which has been described as the "most serious" issue ever found by researcher Ryan Austin, allows hackers to access personal data and potentially compromise websites. The PHP Foundation had planned to announce the patch in late October, but a leak of basic details about the flaw was circulated on social media, forcing the organization to bring forward the announcement.
Websites around the world have been affected, including the Office for Budget Responsibility, NHS Scotland, and parts of Wikipedia. The UK's National Cyber Security Centre has recommended that organizations unable to apply the fix promptly consider taking their sites offline. The Finnish government has temporarily shut down its public web services, while the Netherlands' cyber-security agency has warned that all versions of PHP dating back to PHP 5 onwards may be affected.
