🇺🇸 English, 23 October 2026, AI-assisted vulnerability
AI-Discovered Bug That Could Have Become a Cybersecurity Disaster
Researchers used AI to find a major flaw in PHP, prompting a rapid patch release and highlighting the increasing role of AI in cybersecurity.
The AI agent reported that it had failed to find a weakness in Drupal, but then found a flaw in PHP, the programming language on which both systems—and as much as 70% of the web—depend.
The exploit, which took advantage of a weakness that had gone undetected for more than a decade, worked, and the details reveal just how close things came to disaster.
Researchers from competing companies shared their findings in common channels, with no contracts governing the arrangement, and devised a fix in a matter of weeks.