Government Websites Go Dark After AI-Discovered PHP Flaw Sparks Global Security Scramble

LAN network cables plugged into a computer server, Berlin, October 21, 2026

Government websites in Europe and beyond went offline on Wednesday after the developers of the PHP programming language released urgent security fixes for critical vulnerabilities that had lurked in the software for years — until they were uncovered using artificial intelligence. PHP runs roughly 75% of websites whose programming language can be identified, according to web tracker W3Techs, so the flaw potentially affects the majority of the internet.

Government agencies across Europe took their sites offline as a precaution. The Dutch national cybersecurity agency led the way, followed by the Port of Rotterdam, the Overheid.nl government portal, the KNVB football association, the websites of the country's five largest political parties and several hospitals. Finland's state IT provider Valtori suspended public network services, France's Interior Ministry put all its websites into preventive maintenance, and even Wikipedia said it had taken down an unspecified number of systems until they could be safely patched.

The flaw was found by cybersecurity company Wiz using its autonomous AI vulnerability research tool Wiz Atlas, along with Google's Gemini 4 Argon and OpenAI's GPT-5.6 Sol, after lying hidden in the PHP codebase for more than a decade. Experts warn AI is now powering a “race to exploit”: with a public fix available, hackers can use AI tools to reverse-engineer the bug with little effort. Cybersecurity agencies in Europe, Australia, Japan and Britain have urged all PHP users to update immediately.

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