AI-linked programming flaw precedes websites going dark

Government agencies and companies around the world shut down websites Wednesday after two security flaws involving PHP came to light, Euronews reported. The outlet described PHP as a programming language that underpins a large share of the internet and said it helps power around 70% of websites worldwide.

Euronews connected the research to artificial intelligence, reporting that OpenAI said its GPT-5.6 Sol model was used in research conducted in Calif. The account does not give a more specific location for Calif or describe the research process.

Its report links the research, the disclosure of the flaws and the website shutdowns, but does not spell out the technical sequence behind those events. The PHP security team gave both vulnerabilities a severity rating of 9.2 out of 10, according to Euronews. That figure applies to each of the two flaws.

The outlet’s account does not explain the scoring criteria or provide technical details about the vulnerabilities. The immediate documented action was the shutdown of websites by government agencies and companies in different parts of the world.

Euronews does not identify which agencies or companies took those steps, how many websites they shut down, or whether the shutdowns affected public access, internal services or both. France 24’s headline also says websites went dark as AI exposed security flaws.

Its wording links the AI and the disclosure more directly; Euronews’ article text says the OpenAI model was used in the research and separately reports that the flaws came to light before agencies and companies shut down websites.

The two accounts describe the issue as involving PHP and connect the discovery to AI, while the reporting provides no account from the PHP security team, the affected organizations or OpenAI beyond the statement Euronews attributes to OpenAI about the model’s use.

The reported scale of PHP’s use means the programming language supports a substantial share of websites, but the account does not identify any particular site or service affected by the shutdowns.