Why AI could threaten much of the world's digital infrastructure Share Why AI could threaten much of the world's digital infrastructure on social media Earlier this month, authorities worldwide urged website administrators to execute emergency updates after a nonprofit programming foundation flagged critical security flaws that could allow hackers to breach systems. Government and corporate websites briefly went offline to patch the vulnerabilities, nicknamed PHP2Shell, which were discovered by independent cybersecurity experts using artificial intelligence (AI). They had gone unnoticed, however, because it would have been too complicated for humans to exploit them without the use of advanced AI. But cybersecurity experts, as well as those maintaining important software, say PHP2Shell could be the first in a deluge of security flaws exposed by emerging AI. They say much of the world's most critical digital infrastructure is maintained by volunteers, who often lack the resources and time to respond to newly discovered threats.

Security researchers used AI tools to help uncover years-old vulnerabilities in the PHP web scripting language. Then the AI-assisted attacks began. As security teams and web admins scrambled this week to patch newly public PHP bugs, criminal hackers quickly attempted to exploit the flaws in the wild. Millions of exploitation attempts hit within hours of the vulnerabilities being published, according to analysis from Cloudflare--unsurprising given broad access to AI tools that can make it easier for attackers to quickly exploit flaws. So far, the nightmare scenario of mass victim takeovers and breaches hasn't come to pass.

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.

OpenAI agents have been running amok online, and it seems the Wikimedia Foundation has been affected too. The foundation says it detected unauthorized activity from OpenAI agents on its platforms, including edits to some wikis and failed attempts to compromise a note-taking tool. It reiterated that bots have been crawling data from its platforms en masse, while agents that appear to be operated by OpenAI have made millions of requests to its public APIs. An investigation didn't turn up any evidence that AI agents were using Wikimedia systems to coordinate their activity (as they appear to have done on non-Wikimedia-operated wikis) and nor did the foundation detect signs of its data or systems being compromised. "However, we are concerned about what could have occurred here, the difficulty and effort involved in investigating and attributing this activity, and the growing risks of agentic AI activity on our platforms in general," Selena Deckelmann, the foundation's chief product and technology officer, wrote in a blog post.

Say More Look Up Top creators, ranked Gift Ideas For Everyone On Your List Mashable's Best: E-readers, robovacs, laptops, earbuds, smart home and more Creator Playbook Mashable Selects In My Bag AI at School Safety Net Versus Trending Now All Series What is the SCP Foundation? Inside the internet horror universe headed to Hollywood. Secure, Contain, Protect is hitting the silver screen. Olivia Tauber is the deputy editor of digital culture, covering creators, media, movies, beauty, and more. Based in New York, her work has appeared in The New York Times, Vanity Fair, The Cut, Teen Vogue, Complex, and Interview Magazine.

Follow this author to personalize your feed and get instant alerts. Follow Go to your personalized feed WHY FOLLOW? Smart Alerts: Get notified about major news as it happens. Matt Madrigal, chief product and technology officer at Pinterest, says most apps are built to be addictive. His focus is on what he calls additive AI --software that provides ideas, products, or plans that are useful in real life.

CodePink co-founder Medea Benjamin's family foundation, Arc of Justice, provided nearly $3.2 million to the anti-war protest group while funding dozens of left-wing nonprofits.

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More than 200 people in roles such as engineering, finance, and communications will now be represented by the Communications Workers of America. More than 200 staffers at the Wikimedia Foundation, the nonprofit behind the encyclopedia Wikipedia, have voted 158-14 to join the Communications Workers of America labor union. The US National Labor Relations Board counted ballots on Thursday. Three Wikimedia employees tell WIRED they will now have a mechanism to challenge management as the organization faces growing competition from AI chatbots and a drop in volunteer editors. The 25-year-old, San Francisco-based foundation employs nearly 700 people across 39 countries, most of them working remotely.

Simplifying and integrating enterprise technology can help companies move faster, respond to disruptions, and build a stronger foundation for AI, says Harish Manohar, SAP IT Director at Jabil. As companies scale, the technology supporting operations can become a liability just as quickly as it becomes an asset. Disconnected systems, site-specific tools, spreadsheets, and manual workarounds can create data silos that make it harder to spot problems early, coordinate responses, and make decisions with confidence. For Jabil, a global manufacturing company with more than 100 sites across more than 30 countries, the answer has been to make integration and simplification a priority. The company adopted a "simplify-first, then-innovate mindset," says Harish Manohar, SAP IT director at Jabil, recognizing that adding new technologies without first reducing complexity risks creating more risk. The goal is to standardize processes, consolidate where possible, and establish a more consistent data backbone across the organization. "Any innovation without simplification is going to add more complexity," Manohar says. That philosophy also changes how Jabil approaches modernization. "Any modernization or transformation should add measurable business value," Manohar says. The company is focused on connecting processes end-to-end across its supply chain and creating a foundation that can scale consistently across regions.