Software security | Vulnerabilities

'Black October' Has Tech Leaders Warning AI Will Outrun Patching

Critical flaws in the language behind millions of websites sent governments offline to patch, and industry experts expect a flood of new bugs.

By Content Team

Oct 29, 2026

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Tech leaders are warning of a coming “vulnerability tsunami” after researchers used AI to help find two critical flaws in PHP, the coding language behind millions of websites. Wiz researchers say the underlying flaws had been present for decades.

The scramble began with the October 21 disclosure. The NSA issued an urgent alert, and government and private websites in the US and UK temporarily went offline to apply fixes. Cloudflare CEO Matthew Prince said exploit attempts climbed from thousands in the 10 hours before the announcement to millions afterward, and CISA has since confirmed the flaws are being exploited.

“I no longer think we’re going to be able to patch all bugs,” said OpenAI CEO Sam Altman. Anthropic deputy chief information security officer Jason Clinton warned there “won’t be enough time to patch critical infrastructure,” and Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff called it a “code red.” The next two years, Prince said, will be “incredibly fraught.”

Source: The Guardian

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