Critical tech security flaws force global website shutdowns

An American tech company using artificial intelligence has discovered two critical security vulnerabilities in the web development programming language PHP.

Governments and organisations across multiple countries have temporarily shut down websites to prevent hackers from breaching servers and stealing passwords and sensitive data.

The PHP team has released security patches and is urging the technology sector to update their software as a matter of urgency.

Following the discovery of two major security flaws in PHP, an open source programming language widely used across the tech sector, network operators worldwide have taken protective measures.

European countries including the Netherlands and Finland temporarily shut down government and hospital websites.

The BBC and the Scottish Parliament have also taken down some of their websites to prevent cyberattacks.

PHP, which stands for "Hypertext Preprocessor," is used to develop dynamic websites and web applications.

Its key features are ease of use and flexibility, supporting various databases.

While HTML is considered the "skeleton" of a website, PHP acts as its "backend brain," handling functions such as user comments, logins, and data storage.

Reports suggest roughly 70% of websites worldwide utilise the PHP programming language.

This means hackers could exploit these security flaws to execute code, read passwords and sensitive data stored in memory, and potentially even take control of entire servers.

According to a report by the CNN, AI teams at OpenAI and Google discovered the security flaws.

The BBC quoted experts saying AI is currently reshaping the landscape of global cybersecurity.

Cybersecurity agencies in several countries have advised if more governments, institutions, and businesses fail to update their PHP security patches promptly, they should consider temporarily shutting down their websites.

Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi posted on Wednesday, calling on businesses and the public to inspect their websites and implement remediation measures.

The US National Security Agency has also urged relevant organisations to temporarily take down affected websites and patch the vulnerabilities as soon as possible.

Meanwhile, the White House stated it is collaborating with AI laboratories to accelerate a resolution.

The PHP team released a patched version on Wednesday, urging governments and partners of the tech sector to update their software as soon as possible.