Rush to patch software flaw that could impact 70% of websites worldwide

LONDON — Governments and corporations worked throughout the night on urgent security updates after the AI-assisted discovery of vulnerabilities in a programming language vital to 70% of websites globally. Many government sites appeared to be functioning normally Thursday, but outages or limited service continued while security work was under way. The FBI’s cyber division warned on Wednesday that the vulnerabilities could allow malicious actors to remotely execute code in the programming language, PHP, which powers websites and web applications. That raised the risk of sensitive data and networks being compromised, said the agency, which recommended that operators take websites offline if they can’t update them immediately. Cybersecurity experts who spoke to the Associated Press said the impact of the vulnerabilities discovered would have ripple effects for some time but said governments were following cyber best practice by taking down websites while they were patched. Limited disruptions on government websites In Britain, some “limited” government services may temporarily be of