AI uncovers massive flaw in web's foundational code

Security officials are sounding the alarm over two critical vulnerabilities in a programming language used to run millions of websites, marking one of the most consequential cybersecurity discoveries yet made with AI . Why it matters: The bugs, which researchers found partly with an OpenAI model, proves AI can uncover critical flaws humans missed for decades — raising the stakes for defenders racing to fix vulnerabilities before attackers can exploit them at machine speed. What they're saying: Matthew Prince, the CEO of Cloudflare, a global connectivity and internet security company, said the company saw thousands of attempts to exploit the flaws in the 10 hours before it was publicly announced. "That jumped to tens of thousands in the 45 minutes post announcement, hundreds of thousands within 2 hours, and millions now," he wrote on X. Driving the news: There are two problems hackers could easily exploit in an open-source programming language known as PHP that's used on nearly 70% of all websites . Government officials from the U.S. to Japan are warning companies to apply a patch to fix the bugs, or consider taking down their sites to avoid an attack. OpenAI touted the role its model played in discovering one of the vulnerabilities, which allowed PHP researchers to create a fix. Between the lines: Security researchers have been skeptical of AI-generated vulnerability reports, many of which have turned out to be minor bugs or false alarms. But the PHP discovery could force the cybersecurity community to reckon with the reality of AI threats. "It highlights how AI can uncover security flaws with internet-scale impact, but the same capabilities can also help attackers rapidly develop offensive tools and exploits," OpenAI said in a blog post Wednesday. Threat level: If exploited, the PHP flaws would allow malicious hackers to take control of vulnerable web servers without needing a password or other credentials. Since PHP runs under a wide variety of internet applicatio