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A critical PHP vulnerability has websites worldwide racing to install security patches.

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PHP is the programming language behind roughly 70% of websites , and it just ran into a serious problem. Security researchers used AI to uncover a critical flaw called PHP2Shell, which could let attackers take over web servers, steal data, or disrupt online services. Since the discovery, websites worldwide have been hit with millions of attempts to exploit it.

Hackers moved fast once the flaw went public. Cloudflare CEO Matthew Prince said the attack attempts jumped from tens of thousands within 45 minutes to millions overnight, The Guardian reports.

How did AI find the PHP flaw and why is it causing so much alarm?

RealToughCandy / Pexels

If PHP sounds unfamiliar, it’s a decades-old language running WordPress, Wikipedia, Slack, Drupal and more. Cybersecurity firm Calif spotted the flaw with help from a large language model on August 1.…