Serious PHP vulnerabilities found this week

[Jason]

This week, a major flaw was found in PHP, a core scripting language most websites rely on (Hughes, 2026). Evidently, the security vulnerabilities have existed in the code for years. The team upgraded the PHP packages on the server this evening. It scared me a bit, since an attacker could exploit it to gain total control of the website. The CBC article linked below explains it well. What fascinates me is that researchers found the flaws using AI and patched them before hackers knew about them.

References
Hughes, A. (2026, October 22). What is PHP, and how did a flaw in its code lead several websites to go dark this week?. CBC News. https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/php-cybersecurity-vulnerability-explainer-9.7392394

[buster]

There's probably a long list of vulnerabilities that we 'don't see' until after the event, though they are often right in front of us.

- The Maginot line between the French and Germans worked well in WW2, except the Germans simply went around it.

- 2008 Subprime mortgages were bundled and spread throughout the economy and the world economic system almost collapsed. They were bad risks to begin with.

- Scientists estimate that between 200 and 100,000 species become extinct each year. (Since we don't know how many species there are, because new ones are always being discovered, it's hard to refine the numbers.) Many plants, sea and land, supply oxygen, and many insects supply needed pollination for foods, so are we really guessing a hot ocean will just make ocean swimming warmer?

- And the hugely integrated electronically computerized business world will never have a problem, and the affiliated electrical systems will keep running smoothly. (Any of us who have set up home networks with multiple computers and printers and automatic updates have seen the damnedest things over the years.)

Jason has pointed out something that has been in front of us for ages without being noticed.

Myself, I think the 'unseen' thing will be hot oceans and/or the electronic interconnectedness of the world.

I don't think it's necessarily what will go wrong, but like COVID, when will something new and unexpected erupt. (Or maybe the countries of the world will start elected unbalanced people for president, like some countries we know.)