NSA warns of critical PHP flaws uncovered by AI: patch or take sites offline

Decade-old vulnerabilities found with OpenAI and Wiz AI agents prompt urgent internet-wide patching race

By LineZotpaper

Published21 October 2026

Updated21 October 2026

Read Time3 min

Sources3 outlets

The U.S. National Security Agency has issued an urgent warning about two critical vulnerabilities in the PHP programming language, which powers roughly 70% of the web's sites, and is advising that websites that cannot be patched immediately be pulled offline. Security researchers using AI tools, including OpenAI's GPT-5.6 Sol and Google's Wiz Atlas agent, uncovered the flaws, which have existed in all versions of PHP since 2004.

The NSA said in an advisory on Wednesday that the two critical flaws allow attackers to infiltrate a server's file system or a database used by a web application. Patches have already been issued by the PHP Foundation, and the agency recommends updating web servers to the current version, PHP 8.5.12. Versions 8.1 and older are no longer supported, meaning many sites will have significant updating work to do.

The holes have been tucked away in all versions of PHP since version 5, which was released in 2004. PHP is a server-side programming language widely used for web applications and powers popular content management systems such as WordPress.

The discovery came through artificial intelligence. OpenAI said that security testing company Calif, working within its "Patch the Planet" initiative to find flaws in open-source software, found one of the flaws using GPT-5.6 Sol. Separately, the Wiz team, part of Google, used its Wiz Atlas security AI agent, along with Gemini 4 Argon and GPT-5.6 Sol, to find multiple vulnerabilities in PHP.

Both OpenAI and Wiz followed responsible security research practices, coordinating with the PHP Foundation on patches before publicly disclosing the flaws. Wiz thanked Automattic, Akamai, AWS, Cloudflare, Fastly, Imperva, Microsoft and Vercel for help testing the fixes. WordPress, which runs on PHP, said the flaw is not WordPress specific and that sites using its CMS must patch their servers and work with their hosting companies to ensure protection.

OpenAI says the flaws were found before hackers discovered them, and there have been no reports of exploits in the wild. That is in part because, before AI, the flaws were too hard for hackers to exploit. "With AI this is no longer a barrier. LLMs can help adapt an exploit to different PHP versions, configurations and memory layouts," Wiz warned in its blog post about the flaws.

Now that the issues are public, the race is on for the internet to patch tens of millions of websites before attackers can strike unpatched systems. Hence the NSA's guidance: if a PHP website cannot be patched right away, it is better off taken offline until it can be.

Analysis

Why This Matters

PHP powers roughly 70% of websites, so these vulnerabilities carry an unusually wide reach across the internet.
AI both uncovered the flaws and raises the risk: the same tools can help attackers adapt exploits to unpatched systems.
The NSA's advice to pull unpatched sites offline signals the severity of the situation.

Background

PHP is one of the most widely used server-side programming languages on the web, forming the foundation of countless websites and content management systems such as WordPress. The newly disclosed flaws have been present since PHP 5, released in 2004, meaning a large portion of the internet's infrastructure has been carrying them for more than two decades. Many older PHP versions are no longer supported, so administrators must upgrade to current releases to receive patches.

Key Perspectives

Security agencies and researchers: The NSA and the teams that found the flaws argue that immediate patching is essential, and that responsible disclosure, combined with AI-assisted testing, prevented exploitation before the public announcement. The PHP Foundation and hosting partners: Maintainers worked with OpenAI and Wiz on patches, drawing in major infrastructure companies such as Akamai, AWS, Cloudflare and Microsoft to test fixes and help protect hosted sites. Critics and skeptics: Public disclosure means hackers now know about the flaws, and AI tools can lower the barrier to exploiting them. Wiz itself warned that large language models can adapt exploits to different PHP versions, configurations and memory layouts, removing a hurdle that previously protected unpatched sites.

What to Watch

Whether working exploits appear in the wild in the days following disclosure.
How quickly web hosting providers and site owners upgrade to PHP 8.5.12 or apply other available patches.
Whether this prompts further AI-assisted audits of legacy open-source software, uncovering more long-dormant vulnerabilities.

Sources

Checked

11 claims in this story checked against 1 source: 7 supported.

Show each claim

SupportedThe NSA warned about critical PHP flaws uncovered through AI-assisted research.TechCrunch: “The U.S. National Security Agency’s sent out an alarming warning on Wednesday that two critical holes had been found in PHP”
SupportedThe NSA advised taking PHP sites offline if they cannot be patched immediately.TechCrunch: “The NSA warned that these holes are so severe that if a website can’t be patched immediately, it should be pulled off the web until it can be.”
SupportedOpenAI- and Wiz-assisted research found PHP vulnerabilities that had existed since 2004, prompting a race to patch websites.TechCrunch: “these holes have been tucked away in all versions of PHP since version 5, which was released in 2004. [...] The race is on for the internet to patch tens millions of websites”
SupportedPHP powers roughly 70% of websites on the internet.TechCrunch: “it powers roughly 70% of the websites on the internet”
Partly supportedThe NSA said in an advisory on Wednesday that the flaws permit attackers to access a server’s file system or a web application’s database.TechCrunch: “The U.S. National Security Agency’s sent out an alarming warning on Wednesday that two critical holes had been found in PHP”
Partly supportedThe flaws allow attackers to infiltrate a server’s file system or a database used by a web application.TechCrunch: “The holes allow attackers to infiltrate the server’s file system or a database that may be used by the web app.”
SupportedThe vulnerabilities have existed in all PHP versions since version 5, released in 2004.TechCrunch: “these holes have been tucked away in all versions of PHP since version 5, which was released in 2004.”
Partly supportedMany sites will have significant updating work because PHP 8.1 and older versions are unsupported.TechCrunch: “Websites not running relatively current versions of PHP will have some updating work to do, as PHP 8.1 and older versions are no longer supported.”
Partly supportedOpenAI and Wiz coordinated with the PHP Foundation on patches before publicly disclosing the flaws.TechCrunch: “Both OpenAI and Wiz followed responsible security research practices and worked with PHP on patches before publicly disclosing the flaws.”
SupportedWiz warned, “With AI this is no longer a barrier. LLMs can help adapt an exploit to different PHP versions, configurations and memory layouts,”TechCrunch: ““With AI this is no longer a barrier. LLMs can help adapt an exploit to different PHP versions, configurations and memory layouts,” Wiz warned in its blog about the flaws.”
SupportedOpenAI said the flaws were found before hackers discovered them, and there were no reports of exploits in the wild.TechCrunch: “OpenAI says that these flaws were found by researchers before hackers discovered them. So there were no reports of exploits in the wild.”