OpenAI's GPT-5.6 Sol and Google's Gemini 4 Argon found critical PHP flaw affecting millions of websites
OpenAI's GPT-5.6 Sol and Google's Gemini 4 Argon found critical PHP flaw affecting millions of websites
OpenAI's GPT-5.6 Sol and Google's Gemini 4 Argon discovered a critical PHP vulnerability affecting millions of websites in the Patch-the-Planet program, which was independently discovered by the security company Wiz using its own Wiz Atlas platform.
The incident involved collaboration among multiple institutions to fix the issue, and also demonstrated the dual role of the model in both vulnerability discovery and attack amplification.
Same story3 other outlets also reported this
How the accounts differ:TechCrunch states the vulnerabilities affect '70% of websites'; The Decoder and Latent Space state 'affecting millions of websites'.
- TechCrunch · AI··First
OpenAI and Google's Wiz use AI to discover that 70% of PHP websites have ancient vulnerabilities.
- The Decoder··+1 h 46 min·Reading now
OpenAI GPT-5.6 Sol and Google Gemini 4 Argon discover a critical PHP vulnerability affecting millions of websites
- Latent Space··+13 h 44 min
OpenAI's Patch the Planet project with Wiz jointly discovers PHP2Shell vulnerability affecting 70% of websites, repaired using GPT-5.6 Sol
Adds:Latent Space mentions Calif as a partner in the discovery.
- Synced··+16 h 34 min
OpenAI discovers major PHP security vulnerability, one of the most impactful
In order of publication · later reports are added as they appear · Compared by AI from each outlet’s title and summary
AI models from OpenAI and Google found a critical PHP vulnerability that could affect millions of websites worldwide.
GPT-5.6 Sol tracked down the flaw as part of the Patch-the-Planet initiative, which OpenAI calls one of the "most impactful security issues in recent memory." The model spotted the vulnerabilities before attackers did, giving developers and security vendors a window to respond. A tool on GitHub now lets server operators check whether their PHP version is affected.
Security firm Wiz found the same flaws independently, using its own Wiz Atlas platform alongside Google's Gemini 4 Argon and GPT-5.6 Sol. Gemini 4 Argon proved especially useful for finding the vulnerability, developing exploits, building attack detection, and validating the patch, according to Wiz.
AI lowers the bar for attackers
An exploit that worked against one specific PHP installation used to require significant effort to adapt to other versions and configurations, Wiz explains. Large language models remove that barrier because they can automatically adjust exploits across different PHP versions, configurations, and memory layouts. "This significantly lowers the barrier to scaling attacks across different deployments," the firm writes, adding that "vulnerabilities that once seemed impractical to exploit become viable targets."
The fix was coordinated over two months across five phases, involving PHP developers, Wiz, Cloudflare, and US agencies including CISA and the White House. OpenAI is proposing this process as a repeatable framework for future AI-driven security discoveries.
The company expects findings on the scale of the PHP2Shell flaw to "increase sharply in the coming months," but warns that the same AI capabilities that find vulnerabilities can help attackers too. The discovery feeds into a months-long debate over AI models' offensive and defensive cybersecurity capabilities.
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Source: The Decoder · the-decoder.com