Black October: why bugs discovered by OpenAI tech are creating a cyber emergency

The websites you use every day may have been vulnerable to hackers for years because of hidden flaws in their code that AI only recently discovered. Why it matters: The code, called PHP, powers millions of websites, and the vulnerabilities could allow hackers to steal sensitive data like your passwords or take control of affected servers. Driving the news: A potential attack exploiting flaws in PHP emerged on Wednesday, which prompted governments and companies to temporarily take their websites offline while they installed security patches. Dozens of websites in the U.S., U.K., and around the world were briefly taken offline to make the fix. The disruption put the National Security Agency and Europe's cybersecurity agency on alert. State of play: Security patches were released to fix the issues on Oct. 21, 2026. Cybersecurity firms urged anyone using PHP to install the security updates immediately. What they're saying: OpenAI's technology helped find the bugs, and the company called the discovery "one of the most impactful security issues in recent memory." "To our knowledge, frontier AI found these vulnerabilities before attackers did," OpenAI said. The cybersecurity firm Wiz wrote in a blog post : "These findings rank among the most severe vulnerabilities discovered in PHP, and arguably in software history." Read more below. What is PHP? You've probably never heard of PHP, even though you've interacted with it for decades. PHP, which stands for Hypertext Preprocessor , is a programming language used by roughly 70% of websites whose server-side language is known. It has been around since the 1990s to help build websites, taking data and generating content sent to a browser. It's still used today for a variety of websites, including Wikipedia, WordPress blogs and shopping websites. How it works: HTML determines what a website displays. PHP works behind the scenes to collect information and generate content. What was the PHP vulnerability, exactly? AI researchers dis