- Government websites across Europe were taken offline on Wednesday as operators scrambled to patch two critical vulnerabilities discovered in PHP, the widely used open-source programming language that powers nearly 70 per cent of identifiable websites.
- Rated 9.2 out of 10 on the CVSS severity scale, the flaws allow unauthenticated remote code execution, giving cyber attackers the ability to run commands, steal data, or fully compromise vulnerable servers without requiring passwords.
- The European Union 's cybersecurity team, CERT-EU, has advised organisations unable to immediately apply the security patches to take affected websites offline, warning that standard automatic updates will not resolve the issue.
- The long-standing flaws were independently uncovered using artificial intelligence models developed by security firm Calif with OpenAI , and Alphabet -owned Wiz, with experts noting the discovery was at the edge of human research capabilities.
- US president Donald Trump announced his administration is coordinating with federal agencies to expedite fixes, praising American artificial intelligence capabilities for uncovering the decades-old vulnerabilities and enhancing national security.
IN FULL
What is PHP? The cybersecurity issue which saw multiple government websites taken offline
