Artificial Intelligence

Will AI expose the rickety infrastructure of the internet?

Recent critical vulnerabilities discovered in the open source programming language PHP have sparked discussions about the fragility of foundational web infrastructure in the age of advanced artificial intelligence.

Radwan AbdulhadiEditor and technology writer

Published: October 25, 2026 · Updated: October 25, 2026 · 3 min read

Will AI expose the rickety infrastructure of the internet? — Image: TechCrunch

The PHP-ocalypse and Web Vulnerabilities

A startling announcement recently alerted website owners to immediately patch their sites or take them down due to newly discovered vulnerabilities in the open source programming language PHP. This incident, discussed on TechCrunch’s Equity podcast, raised urgent questions regarding the security of foundational internet technologies.

Experts described the situation as a major reckoning moment for the web, highlighting how deeply dependent the modern internet is on open source software that has existed for decades. Because PHP forms the core ingredient behind content management systems used by WordPress, Drupal, and roughly 70% of websites across tens of millions of domains, the scale of the potential impact is massive.

The Role of Artificial Intelligence

The discovery of these flaws underscores growing concerns about how artificial intelligence changes cybersecurity dynamics. While these specific vulnerabilities were found by human researchers, the broader availability of large language models and specialized AI agents dramatically changes how bad actors can identify and exploit weaknesses.

Industry observers noted that when individuals gain access to extremely advanced software and autonomous agents capable of targeting specific infrastructure components, the volume of potential attacks multiplies exponentially.

Exploitation Prior to Public Disclosure

The public disclosure process created a panicked rush as organizations scrambled to protect their web properties. Complicating matters, intelligence teams observed malicious actors attempting to leverage the flaws before official announcements were widely distributed.

According to security disclosures, Amazon threat intelligence identified exploitation of the PHP2Shell issue prior to public disclosure through decoy networks. Meanwhile, executives like Cloudflare CEO Matthew Prince reported witnessing millions of attempted hacks targeting the vulnerability as information circulated.

Broader Consequences and Link Rot

The severity of the vulnerability left many website operators with difficult choices. Rather than immediately applying complex patches, some governments, companies, and small website owners temporarily or permanently took their sites offline.

Industry reports have highlighted that taking sites offline rather than fixing them risks accelerating link rot and permanently losing pieces of digital history that may no longer be accessible online.

A New Frontier in Cybersecurity

The recent events surrounding PHP have illuminated the underlying risks of building critical infrastructure on decades-old code. Observers emphasize that coordinating discrete disclosures across millions of distributed web servers becomes nearly impossible at modern scales.

As organizations navigate these challenges, experts view this incident as merely the beginning of an ongoing struggle between defenders and automated threat actors in a new era of digital security.