About 70% of the internet is in danger
Niv Bavarsky
Your IT manager doesn’t have time to recover your email password this week, since over half of the internet needs to be fixed. Yesterday, developers released vital patches for PHP, a programming language that powers roughly 70% of the world’s websites, warning that if those patches aren’t manually deployed ASAP, hackers could cause serious damage.
What happened (for those of us with a BA)? Multiple researchers using AI independently discovered the bug over the summer, and they formed a secret, informal group to try and patch it. They announced the patch on Monday and released it yesterday at 10am ET. The overhaul of PHP was a huge undertaking, with developers writing over 10,000 lines of code to fix the bug. But that’s just the beginning, because now hackers can try to reverse engineer the patch and target other vulnerable parts of the system:Experts said hackers could use the vulnerability to alter websites, run their own code on servers, and steal data.
Developers ranked the severity of the threat a 9.2 out of 10.
AI is solving the problems it created
Researchers discovered and helped patch the bug with AI’s help so that hackers using supercharged AI models won’t be able to exploit it. The bug found in PHP was actually first flagged years ago, but it was considered low priority, as it was deemed too complicated for hackers to manually access. Now, with AI, they could untangle the system in hours or even seconds.
Ami Luttwak, co-founder of Google’s Wiz cybersecurity team, which helped identify the PHP bug, said this was “the most severe AI vulnerability that was ever found.”
Who should be worried? Basically any WordPress site is at risk. Some providers urged users to take down their sites if they weren’t able to immediately make updates. Finland and the Netherlands took some government sites offline to prevent attacks. Some Wikipedia pages, 4Chan, and BBC sites that host episodes of Doctor Who went dark this week, but the sites’ owners haven’t confirmed whether or not it was to protect the sites. Cybersecurity experts are waiting to see if hackers manage to disrupt any major sites over the next few days.—MM
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