Race to update services' computer systems after cyber-security flaw found

How did AI discover the internet's massive cyber-security risk? Organisations and businesses are still scrambling to update their systems after cyber-security flaws were revealed in a widely-used programming language, PHP. Websites around the world were taken offline on Wednesday and Thursday after the developers of PHP said "critical vulnerabilities" were found in the back-end language, used in web development for decades.

Researchers warned the "severe" flaws could expose millions of sites using it to potential hacks if left unpatched. The UK government was among those to take some sites offline as a precaution. There have been no successful attacks reported so far, but experts say any impact may take time—possibly even months—to become fully apparent.

Downing Street stated on Thursday that "some" limited government services "may be offline" while security work was being carried out. Tech Minister Baroness Lloyd of Effra informed the House of Lords that "32 Government services are unavailable and four are partially unavailable," attributing this to precautionary measures taken to protect systems while security updates and mitigations are applied.

The government did not specify which services were taken offline but assured that no large UK public-facing critical services had been affected. A spokesperson mentioned that work had already taken place across government to "identify and fix potential exposures to our systems" and that experts were continuing to work closely with both OpenAI and international partners on this issue. "But this does not mean they were hacked, and work continues to resolve any issues," they added.