Government and company websites across the world went offline this week after the disclosure of critical vulnerabilities in a widely used programming language prompted millions of hacking attempts. Japan has said it will set up a team to simulate cyberattacks using AI to identify weaknesses in technology systems as organizations scramble to curtail risks from flaws in the PHP programming language that underpins much of the internet. Government and company websites across the world went offline this week after the disclosure of critical vulnerabilities in the widely used programming language prompted millions of hacking attempts, forcing website operators to rush to protect or temporarily shut down their systems. Highlighting the extent of the disruption, Japan's third-largest mobile carrier, SoftBank, said on Friday it was suspending its emergency alert system for mobile users. In a time of both misinformation and too much information, quality journalism is more crucial than ever. By subscribing, you can help us get the story right.

'Black October': cybersecurity experts sound the alarm over new era of AI-enabled hacking After discovery of severe bug in the PHP programming language, executives warn of'vulnerability tsunami' Leaders in cybersecurity are sounding the alarm after the discovery of a major vulnerability this week. They are predicting that artificial intelligence tools will expose more fundamental weaknesses in global internet infrastructure in the months to come. "I no longer think we're going to be able to patch all bugs," said Sam Altman on Thursday evening, joining the chorus of executives. In the midst of what's being called "Black October", for which researchers used AI to help identify critical flaws in a coding language that is used across millions of websites and may have been unpatched for years, tech executives are warning about the ways AI will be used both to identify and exploit security vulnerabilities at an unprecedented scale and pace. The next few months will see a "vulnerability tsunami", according to Jason Clinton, Anthropic's deputy chief information security officer.

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The UK government says it is working to actively identify and patch any potential exposure in its online services, after vulnerabilities were identified in the PHP programming language that underpins a significant number of the world's websites. Governments and some of the world's biggest companies, including Amazon, were scrambling to protect their systems on Thursday before hackers could exploit them. The flaws were first discovered by AI, after which governments and agencies urged websites to address them. Amazon was targeted in multiple attempts, which it said occurred before an embargo on the warning was lifted. It added that it was unclear how actors knew about the vulnerabilities.

Our gifting experts are obsessively searching for holiday gifts that are unique, thoughtful and suitable for any budget. GridCraft is the open-source Excel clone for Linux I've been waiting for If spreadsheets are your thing, but Microsoft Office isn't, you might want to give the open-source clone, GridCraft, a try. Jack Wallen is what happens when a Gen Xer mind-melds with present-day snark. GridCraft is almost the MS Excel clone it intends to be. GridCraft is both free and open-source.

The PHP Foundation has released a patch for the flaw but it may take time for vulnerable sites to use it to shore up their defences. The PHP Foundation has released a patch for the flaw but it may take time for vulnerable sites to use it to shore up their defences. Websites around the globe have gone dark after a serious vulnerability was found in a computer language used to build much of the world wide web. Belgian, Dutch, Finnish, French and German sites were among those that governments took down temporarily as they scrambled to patch the critical weakness in PHP, a language used by almost 70% of websites . The vulnerability in the programming language, which became public on Tuesday, sparked warnings from national security agencies in Washington and London.

A screen displays an unavailable Dutch government website, as cyber agencies warn that websites may be taken offline while PHP prepares a critical fix on Wednesday. Government websites in Europe and elsewhere went offline on Wednesday after the disclosure of critical vulnerabilities in a widely used programming language sent website operators around the world scrambling to protect their systems. Developers of the PHP programming language on Wednesday released urgent new fixes to vulnerabilities that had quietly been lurking in their software for years until they were uncovered using AI, saying that all users were "encouraged to update immediately." With tech firms warning that some hackers were already exploiting the flaws, government agencies across Europe were among those that took sites offline as a precaution. In a time of both misinformation and too much information, quality journalism is more crucial than ever. By subscribing, you can help us get the story right.

OpenAI's models are now better at building and migrating software in old programming languages with a dwindling number of programmers, including COBOL, Fortran and Visual Basic. As the company explains, 40 percent of world's banks still rely on COBOL systems, and migrating to ones that use newer languages would not only cost them millions to hundreds of millions, but also a lot of time. Programmers that work with COBOL are aging out of the workforce, however, so the banks that still use it will have to migrate within the next few years. The company said its work on improving its models' COBOL capabilities is guided by developers and enterprise customers who submitted feedback. Coding models are apparently struggling when it comes to working with old languages.

Our gifting experts are obsessively searching for holiday gifts that are unique, thoughtful and suitable for any budget. Open source in the public sector doesn't fail because of technical issues. It fails because it's not aligned with the political agenda Munich is not bringing back LiMux, its Linux desktop distro. Instead, the city is replacing proprietary infrastructure software with open-source programs. Munich is also helping to build software for its own needs and for other cities.

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