India, Oct. 22 -- A pair of critical vulnerabilities in PHP, the open-source programming language that powers much of the modern web, has forced governments and companies across the globe into emergency action.

The vulnerabilities, identified as part of OpenAI's "Patch the Planet" initiative and flagged separately by Google's cybersecurity wing Wiz, could potentially give attackers a direct path to a server's file system or database.

For an internet ecosystem built largely on top of open-source components, this is a code-red scenario. The vulnerabilities were flagged by AI, and a fix was issued on Wednesday afternoon.

The response has been unusually broad. Finland has shut down state internet services, while the Netherlands' cybersecur...