The internet is broken again: two critical PHP vulnerabilities caused some government services in the Netherlands and Finland and some Wikimedia systems to be taken offline. Should tech companies that make billions from open source pay to fix it?
The internet has broken – again. Shouldn’t the tech firms that make billions from it pay to fix it? | Chris Stokel-Walker
AI summary
Two critical PHP vulnerabilities forced some government services in the Netherlands and Finland and some Wikimedia systems to be taken offline, and Cloudflare said it had observed millions of exploitation attempts. The language underpins about 70% of trackable websites, the vulnerabilities score 9.2 on a 10-point scale, and researchers at OpenAI, Wiz and elsewhere have used AI tools to find that they are easily exploitable. Researchers recorded about 48,000 vulnerabilities in 2025 and more than 84,000 already in 2026, and the authors call on tech companies that profit from open source and governments to fund maintenance.