What is PHP and why did it spark a global cyber-security scramble?

For more than a decade, serious flaws had gone undetected in technology underpinning much of the internet. It took artificial intelligence (AI) to bring them to light and caused a global cyber-security alert. The vulnerabilities lie within a programming language called PHP, which has been used internationally since the 2000s to build websites.

Published 22-Oct-2026 05:21 UTC · First seen 22-Oct-2026 05:19 UTC

Sources

• BBC World · 22-Oct-2026