Governments working to identify exposure after global cyber-security warning
Governments and companies are scrambling to protect their websites, as Amazon says it experienced attacks before the warning was made public.
Governments worldwide are racing to identify potential vulnerabilities in their online services due to critical cyber-security flaws discovered in the PHP programming language, which powers many websites. The flaws were first identified by AI, prompting governments to urge all organizations, both private and public, to address the issues.
Amazon, one of the world's largest companies, announced that it discovered a PHP2Shell exploitation attempt on October 17, with an anonymous internet address attempting to target weaknesses in one of its decoy systems. This suggests that multiple actors may have been involved in the attacks, which occurred after a leak of the flaw details on social media.
The NCSC and its counterparts in the EU and Australia have advised those using PHP to apply the fixes, taking systems offline if immediate remediation is not feasible. The PHP flaws have been undetected for at least a decade and could allow attackers to steal sensitive data, disrupt services, or move deeper into a network. The incident highlights how rapidly AI is transforming the cybersecurity landscape, making threats more commonplace as AI technology improves.
Written by urgent.news from BBC World's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
