{"id":654805,"date":"2026-10-23T11:30:11","date_gmt":"2026-10-23T11:30:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/654805\/"},"modified":"2026-10-23T11:30:11","modified_gmt":"2026-10-23T11:30:11","slug":"hacking-attempts-rise-after-flaws-found-in-program-affecting-worlds-websites-npr","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/654805\/","title":{"rendered":"Hacking attempts rise after flaws found in program affecting world&#8217;s websites : NPR"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>            <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/1792755009_87_.jpeg\" data-template=\"https:\/\/npr.brightspotcdn.com\/dims3\/default\/strip\/false\/crop\/5824x3883+0+0\/resize\/{width}\/quality\/{quality}\/format\/{format}\/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fnpr-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fea%2F9b%2F0e0d258549c9be17fa62b3a4fa98%2Fgettyimages-2301428719.jpg\" class=\"img\" alt=\"SINGAPORE - The homepage of the PHP.net website is seen on October 22, 2026 in Singapore. Cyber-security flaws were recently identified in the popular PHP programming language, which is used on a vast number of websites across the world, including those of major companies and national governments. The PHP Foundation released two patches designed to fix the vulnerabilities.\" fetchpriority=\"high\"\/><\/p>\n<p>\n                The homepage of the PHP.net website is seen on October 22, 2026 in Singapore. Cyber-security flaws were recently identified in the popular PHP programming language, which is used on a vast number of websites across the world, including those of major companies and national governments. The PHP Foundation released two patches designed to fix the vulnerabilities.<\/p>\n<p>                    Yong Teck Lim\/Getty Images<\/p>\n<p>                hide caption\n            <\/p>\n<p>              toggle caption<br \/>\n                i<\/p>\n<p>        Yong Teck Lim\/Getty Images<\/p>\n<p>A few months ago AI caused global alarm after autonomous agents were found to have cheated on evaluations and then tried to cover it up, in what became known as the &#8220;Hugging Face hack.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>                  <a class=\"imagewrap\" id=\"featuredStackSquareImagenx-s1-5979085\" href=\"https:\/\/www.npr.org\/2026\/09\/26\/nx-s1-5979085\/the-ai-safety-debate-is-confusing-heres-our-guide-to-the-different-factions\" data-metrics-ga4=\"{&quot;category&quot;:&quot;recirculation&quot;,&quot;action&quot;:&quot;story_recirculation_click&quot;,&quot;clickType&quot;:&quot;inset box&quot;,&quot;clickUrl&quot;:&quot;https:\\\/\\\/www.npr.org\\\/2026\\\/09\\\/26\\\/nx-s1-5979085\\\/the-ai-safety-debate-is-confusing-heres-our-guide-to-the-different-factions&quot;}\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/1792755011_702_.jpeg\" data-original=\"https:\/\/npr.brightspotcdn.com\/dims3\/default\/strip\/false\/crop\/3002x3000+1981+0\/resize\/100\/quality\/100\/format\/jpeg\/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fnpr-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2F9e%2Fe9%2F740a82844c44bf409fd71dd0fcba%2F2026-09-ai-factions-final.jpg\" data-template=\"https:\/\/npr.brightspotcdn.com\/dims3\/default\/strip\/false\/crop\/3002x3000+1981+0\/resize\/{width}\/quality\/{quality}\/format\/{format}\/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fnpr-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2F9e%2Fe9%2F740a82844c44bf409fd71dd0fcba%2F2026-09-ai-factions-final.jpg\" data-format=\"jpeg\" class=\"img lazyOnLoad\" alt=\"A collage of 6 artificial intelligence figures, clockwise from top left: Then-Google AI research scientist Timnit Gebru, Anthropic Co-founder and CEO Dario Amodei, White House AI and crypto czar David Sacks, Steve Bannon, computer scientist and cognitive psychologist Geoffrey Hinton, researcher Fei-Fei Li.\" loading=\"lazy\"\/><\/a>         <\/p>\n<p>This week, AI and hacking are back in the spotlight with AI technology credited to have helped prevent a global cybersecurity crisis.<\/p>\n<p>Cyber-security firm Wiz Research, using OpenAI technology, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wiz.io\/blog\/php2shell-php-rce\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">announced <\/a>on Wednesday it had discovered security flaws in a computer programming language that helps run some 70 percent of the world&#8217;s websites.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/openai.com\/index\/coordinated-disclosure-of-critical-vulnerabilities\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">OpenAI <\/a>called the bug &#8220;one of the most impactful vulnerabilities in recent memory.&#8221; Wiz Research warned that its &#8220;successful exploitation could allow attackers to take control of affected servers, steal sensitive data, and deface the websites running on them.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Corporations and governments from the U.K. to Japan are now rushing to prevent hackers from capitalizing on the flaws.<\/p>\n<p>The flaws were discovered in a major programming language called PHP, short for Hypertext Preprocessor. Wiz Research calls PHP &#8220;the backbone of the web,&#8221; saying the technology has underpinned much of the internet since the 1990s.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;These findings rank among the most severe vulnerabilities discovered in PHP, and arguably in software history,&#8221; the firm said, adding that before publicly disclosing the flaw, teams had worked on building a solution that&#8217;s now available to websites to protect themselves.<\/p>\n<p>As countries scrambled to prevent cyberattacks, numerous websites and pages were taken offline in the past few days. The U.S. National Security Agency warned organizations using PHP to &#8220;maintain heightened awareness&#8221; over the coming weeks. The U.K.&#8217;s National Cyber Security Center called on organizations to &#8220;take immediate action&#8221; to update their websites to the latest fixed or patched version.<\/p>\n<p>Dozens of British and Finnish government services were taken offline this week. In France many local government sites were also briefly taken down. China&#8217;s Industry Ministry urged entities to review security gaps.<\/p>\n<p>In Japan, Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/takaichi_sanae\/status\/2112890642590564386?s=20\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">put out<\/a> &#8220;an urgent request for everyone to take action,&#8221; adding &#8220;If it is difficult to apply the fix patch promptly, temporarily suspending websites and similar measures can be considered an effective way to reduce risk.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Matthew Prince, the head of the cybersecurity firm CloudFlare, <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/eastdakota\/status\/2113079352682570051?s=20\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">said <\/a>his organization saw tens of thousands of attempts to exploit the flaw in the first 45 minutes of its discovery. That&#8217;s now in the millions, Prince said on Thursday.<\/p>\n<p>Wiz Research said the flaws in PHP had been present for decades.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;But demonstrating their exploitability required an exceptionally complex chain of steps, at the edge of what human researchers could practically achieve,&#8221; the organization said. The AI models have &#8220;substantially reduced that barrier, turning a longstanding flaw into an exploit. &#8220;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The homepage of the PHP.net website is seen on October 22, 2026 in Singapore. Cyber-security flaws were recently&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":654806,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[114,85,46],"class_list":["post-654805","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-business","tag-il","tag-israel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/654805","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=654805"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/654805\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/654806"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=654805"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=654805"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=654805"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}