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I once worked opposite a site where a shopping centre was being built. We were warned there might be unexploded bombs from World War Two unearthed during the construction. In the end, there were none, but procedures were put in place as a precaution and we all had to practice filing into designated safe zones inside our building. The PHP story feels like the cyber equivalent of an unexploded bomb - I have never seen such a dramatic, public and global response to a cyber event that hasn't happened yet. There has been no painful attack like the ransomware we saw knock out M&S and JLR in 2025.

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.

What is PHP and why did it spark a global cyber-security scramble? For more than a decade, serious flaws had gone undetected in technology underpinning much of the internet. It took artificial intelligence (AI) to bring them to light and caused a global cyber-security alert. The vulnerabilities lie within a programming language called PHP, which has been used internationally since the 2000s to build websites. Governments and cyber-security agencies around the world scrambled to contain the fallout of this discovery on Wednesday, and have urged website operators to install a new emergency fix or consider taking their platforms offline.

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.

Safety Net Creator Playbook Trending Now Mashable Selects Look Up Mashable's Best: E-readers, robovacs, laptops, earbuds, smart home and more Getting Technical with Mashable Gift Ideas For Everyone On Your List Say More Versus In My Bag Mashable @Home All Series PHP vulnerability: Which websites and services are affected? From online forums to gaming services, operators are taking sites offline while they install emergency PHP security updates. 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. She holds a Master's degree in Journalism from NYU and a Bachelor's from the University of Michigan.

One of the two major issues impacting web security this morning has had a ripple effect. In the wake of an announcement from the PHP Foundation that it was issuing a security release to patch two critical vulnerabilities, several government websites in the EU and Canada were taken offline as a preventive measure. Reuters reported that governments in the Netherlands, Denmark, France and Finland took down at least some websites as a preventive measure. Meanwhile Evan Solomon, Canada's Minister of Artificial Intelligence and Digital Innovation, posted on X about the decision to temporarily go offline, while seconding the call for any website operators using PHP to update as soon as possible. PHP is a programming language for websites.

It's the most startling cybersecurity vulnerability found by AI yet. It won't be the last. Some sites were affected by similar outages today when they were taken offline after a critical cybersecurity vulnerability was announced. Get your news from a source that's not owned and controlled by oligarchs. Newly announced vulnerabilities could affect broad swathes of the internet after being discovered by teams of cybersecurity professionals--with heavy AI assistance.

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