Websites around the world have gone offline after a critical software flaw was discovered by artificial intelligence agents.

The vulnerability involves the PHP programming language, which is used by almost 70 per cent of sites.

Governments and businesses took down their websites in an effort to protect their systems from hackers seeking to exploit the issue.

Security updates are available to fix some of the flaws, though cyber officials have warned any organisation unable to apply the fixes to take their websites down in order to prevent breaches.

“Organisations using any version of PHP are affected and all organisations are highly encouraged to update to the latest fixed version,” the UK’s National Cyber Security Centre said in a note.

“Where immediate remediation is not feasible, organisations should consider taking the system offline until it can be fully mitigated.”

You can follow all the latest news and updates on the PHP cyber security issue here.

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