Numerous PHP-powered websites temporarily went dark after the AI-assisted discovery of critical vulnerabilities

Numerous websites worldwide, including government-run pages, temporarily went dark after the AI-assisted discovery of critical vulnerabilities in the PHP programming language, which powers around 70% of the web globally.

On Wednesday, the developers of the popular open-source programming language, which helps websites run and display content, issued an urgent security alert over “critical remote code execution vulnerabilities.”

The flaws could allow hackers to take control of affected websites, prompting the release of urgent fixes, with all PHP users “strongly encouraged to update immediately.”

Cybersecurity agencies worldwide, including the US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, the European Union Agency for Cybersecurity, the UK’s National Cyber Security Center, the Australian Signals Directorate, and the Canadian Center for Cyber Security, issued their own alerts, advising…