PHP security flaws trigger millions of exploit attempts, says Cloudflare CEO

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The rapid surge in attempted exploits has prompted governments, financial institutions and website operators to strengthen security measures and apply urgent fixes

By Reuters

Updated - October 22, 2026 at 11:56 AM.

Matthew Prince, ​CEO of Cloudflare

Cloud services firm Cloudflare saw millions of exploitation attempts after ​the public disclosure of critical vulnerabilities in ‌the widely used programming language PHP, ​CEO Matthew Prince said ⁠in a post on X late on Wednesday.

"In the 10 hours before it was ‌publicly announced, across the network we saw thousands of attempts ‌to exploit it. That jumped to ‌tens ⁠of thousands in the 45 ⁠minutes post announcement, hundreds of thousands within 2 hours, and millions now," Prince said.

• Read also: Europe takes government websites offline over critical PHP security vulnerabilities

Government websites ​in Europe and ‌elsewhere went offline on Wednesday after the disclosure of vulnerabilities in PHP sent website operators around the world scrambling ‌to protect their systems.

Japanese lender Mitsubishi ​UFJ Financial Group said it was temporarily suspending some internet ⁠services due to emergency measures.

Developers of the PHP programming language on Wednesday released ‌urgent new fixes to vulnerabilities that had been lurking in their software for years until they were uncovered using AI, saying all users were "encouraged to update immediately."

Japanese Prime Minister Sanae ‌Takaichi also urged website owners on Wednesday ​to check whether their sites use PHP and prepare to apply ⁠the new fix.

Japan's Finance Ministry also ⁠temporarily suspended some website content and services while security measures were ‌being implemented.

Published on October 22, 2026

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