TheCorporateCounsel.net

Despite the thoughtful guidance from NCA and CISA for Cybersecurity Awareness Month, all of the password changes and multifactor authentications in the world are not going to help when the agentic AI hackers are attacking the backbone of the internet. Last week, the creators of PHP – which is a programming language used by up to 70% of the internet – released security patches for what this WSJ article describes as “one of the most severe online bugs ever.”

Companies, governments and other organizations have been in a race to patch their websites since the vulnerabilities have been announced, given the threat that AI agents can move with lighting speed and precision in targeting known (and unknown) vulnerabilities. As the WSJ article notes, some website operators (including national governments) simply shut down their websites last week, rather than run the risk of being hacked.

In the “you can’t make this stuff up” category, this Techzine article notes that the PHP Foundation which provides critical infrastructure for approximately 70% of all websites is run entirely on donations and has only one full-time employee! The organization’s struggle to raise funds and lack of staffing underscores how fragile our electronic underpinnings can be, making it a target-rich environment for AI and human hackers.

Hunkering down in that pumpkin patch is not looking so bad now!

– Dave Lynn