Claims extracted
21
sentences that state something as happening or true
Uncertain
10%
2 of 21 hedged
("reportedly", "may", "according to")
Leaning
not political
takes no side on a contested political question
Publisher signals
60/100
Al Jazeera's corrections and
hedging, across everything collected from it. Not a measure of accuracy.
Outlets on this story
27
Technology
Same framing elsewhere
1
articles that frame the event the way this one does
Authorities in Europe, Asia and other continents have temporarily taken some government websites offline to protect against newly discovered security vulnerabilities in a programming language used to power the vast majority of sites on the internet.
asserted
Authorities → take → internet
On Wednesday, vulnerabilities in the PHP programming language prompted a rare public warning from the United States National Security Agency (NSA), which advised taking websites offline if they could not be updated immediately.
uncertain
they → prompt → websites
-tech firm helped place spyware on Al Jazeera devices
- list 3 of 3How Israeli firm’s ‘zero-click’ malware attack poses global security risk
asserted
attack → help → risk
“Effective Immediately, all organizations using PHP for their systems are advised to be prepared for an update addressing two critical vulnerabilities,” the NSA said in a social media post.
asserted
NSA → use → post
In Germany, the Federal Ministry for Digital Transformation and Government Modernisation said it took some websites offline as a preventative measure.
asserted
it → say → measure
France’s Ministry of the Interior deactivated the official websites for local administrative offices.
asserted
Ministry → deactivate → offices
Authorities in Belgium, the Netherlands, Finland and the Czech Republic also said they had shut down websites to apply a security patch to close the PHP loophole.
asserted
they → say → loophole
Even Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi posted on social media to warn about the PHP risk.
asserted
Takaichi → post → risk
Cybersecurity experts discovered the pair of vulnerabilities, dubbed PHP2Shell, with the help of artificial intelligence (AI) models.
asserted
experts → discover → models
Researchers at security firm Calif, working with OpenAI, reported the first flaw on August 11.
asserted
Researchers → work → August
Wiz, a security firm owned by tech giant Alphabet, reported the second vulnerability on August 24.
asserted
Wiz → own → August
Wiz said the findings “rank among the most severe vulnerabilities discovered in PHP, and arguably in software history”.
asserted
findings → say → history
The underlying flaws had been present for decades, the firm said, but proving they were exploitable required a chain of steps “at the edge of what human researchers could practically achieve”.
uncertain
researchers → underlie → what
AI tools let researchers find vulnerabilities in software by testing more attacks than human programmers can alone.
asserted
programmers → let → attacks
Volunteers maintain the PHP programming language, and the nonprofit PHP Foundation said on Wednesday that the flaws were among the most severe it had encountered.
asserted
it → maintain → severe
The group urged anyone administering a website to update their code immediately.
asserted
group → urge → code
Both flaws rely on accessing parts of memory without proper authorisation and exploiting that access to run malicious code.
asserted
flaws → rely → code
The two loopholes mean an attacker can remotely run commands on a server running old PHP code over the internet, without needing a password or legitimate account access.
asserted
attacker → mean → password
The PHP Foundation also warned that AI would make such security weaknesses easier to find.
asserted
weaknesses → warn → ?
It called on tech companies to mount a coordinated response to avoid major disruptions to online services.
asserted
It → call → services
“Tools now find bugs faster than ever, for defenders and attackers alike, and the number of reports will keep growing,” the foundation said in a statement.
asserted
foundation → find → statement
The Aporia
