AI is forcing us to pay off 40 years of technical debt

The PHP2Shell vulnerability puts websites like NASA and Wikipedia at risk of data breaches and malicious code, exposing deep-seated issues with legacy software. In an independent audit sponsored by OpenAI, AI tools helped researchers exploit memory errors to achieve arbitrary code execution in two weeks, upgrading PHP2Shell from a regular bug to a high-risk vulnerability. Experts note that AI plays a significant role in vulnerability discovery and repair reasoning, but formal verification tools still need improvement. Current patches rely on LLM to generate code and proofs, with proof verification still requiring manual intervention.