Websites around the world taken down - as critical software update issued

Government and business websites around the world were taken down in a bid to protect organisations after a critical software update was issued over vulnerabilities in programming language.The developers of the PHP programming language, which is extensively used across the internet, said on Wednesday a set of new ​updates fixing two previously identified critical vulnerabilities was now ​live. It strongly encouraged ‌users to update software immediately - leaving tech teams around the world scrambling to patch the critical flaw.Those unable to apply key fixes should consider taking their websites down, UK and international cyber security officials have warned.PHP is used by almost 70% of websites, according cyber security firm Cloudflare, and underpins popular platforms such as WordPress and Magento. AI agents helped uncover the vulnerabilities.OpenAI, which runs ChatGPT, said in the past two months it has been leading a team of researchers to address the flaw in PHP, and supported its developers as it led the fixes.The company described the incident as "one of the most impactful security issues in recent memory", adding that while AI can help to uncover issues, it can also aid att...