# Source: Govt sites go down after AI finds 'critical' PHP vulnerabilities | Information Age | ACS

> Research: collected from outside sources and what this site derives from them; every fact links to a saved copy of its source.

Information Age (ACS): what it says, the claims and events that cite it, and the hashes of every captured file.

Source · news · secondary · captured

# Govt sites go down after AI finds 'critical' PHP vulnerabilities | Information Age | ACS

**Information Age (ACS)** · [https://ia.acs.org.au/article/2026/govt-sites-go-down-after-ai-finds--critical--php-vulnerabilities.html](https://ia.acs.org.au/article/2026/govt-sites-go-down-after-ai-finds--critical--php-vulnerabilities.html) · published 2026-10-22T12:09 local (per the page) · added by `curator@php.newsroom` · slug `ia-acs-article-2026-govt-sites-go-down-after-ai-finds-critical-php`

Promoted from the source watch (oq9gflln), snapshot 20261023T080331Z, selected by curator@php.newsroom from the 08:30 UTC pass (not from the queue). Tom Williams: several Australian government sites were down or taken down for maintenance overnight, including the Australian Bureau of Statistics and Jobs and...

## What it says, as the collector read it

#### Govt sites go down after AI finds 'critical' PHP vulnerabilities | Information Age | ACS

Promoted by curator@php.newsroom from the source watch (vault `oq9gflln`), page `au/news/ia-acs/article-2026-govt-sites-go-down-after-ai-finds-critical-php`, snapshot `20261023T080331Z`. Copied byte for byte; every file's sha256 is in `captures/20261023T080331Z/provenance.json` and was re-checked against the watch's own hashes.

#### What the page says

_Curator's reading of the capture._

Tom Williams: several Australian government sites were down or taken down for maintenance overnight, including the Australian Bureau of Statistics and Jobs and Skills Australia, which were back soon after. The ASD's ACSC issued a 'critical' alert and said it was not aware of active exploitation. The report says Calif found the bugs in August using a large language model and Wiz found them with its own tools, Gemini and GPT.

> not aware of active exploitation related to these vulnerabilities

#### Why it is here

Not from the promotion queue. The editor asked the curator, in its session on 23 October 2026, to start from the watch's 08:30 UTC pass while the researcher queued it, and approved this batch of fifteen. Selected mechanically: an article page of the watch, snapshot newer than the queue (23 October 02:20 UTC), text that names php2shell or one of the two CVE IDs, URL not already in this vault, English, and naming an organisation or a cause. Nobody has ranked it: if the researcher's queue later lists this URL, it is already here under this slug.

#### Capture notes

Language `en`; the text extract is the watch reader's, the page as served is in `captures/20261023T080331Z/page.html`. Nothing in the page addresses an AI or hides text from a reader.

## Claims that cite it

No claim cites this source yet.

## Events that cite it

No timeline event cites this source yet.

## The bytes
capture 20261023T080331Z · HTTP 200 · https://ia.acs.org.au/article/2026/govt-sites-go-down-after-ai-finds--critical--php-vulnerabilities.html- `headers.json` 6c7a0a24e1fe5637fc0128a9543df3a2bb5079a578d1571c5ee745e4b0a07a59 831 bytes
- `page.html` 21df95872c121c2f672382dafd6d1ca89fe07372f8cd1a00e76f30b22811c993 34,077 bytes
- `provenance.json` 20685a3f6a08933f3b94c2edc57f79936c1349c7d626b8a007e74c089e57ef9d 1,822 bytes
- `rendered.html` ff2da2f8b833dd56d03dc9c164f90f8933bf878549b26f126a4119d0572167cd 52,058 bytes
- `screenshot.jpg` 33e77e17b0f50d77bfb6a433b86dcaa84c12bf65b5146eb7db156b76fb780928 513,879 bytes
- `text.txt` 640f80b25de71eba27f0e3c27d8ff99a44a1fbfbff094fbba106b66ca99af2c5 6,812 bytes

The captured files are held privately in the evidence vault and are not republished; the hashes above are what the vault recorded at capture time. [Every source →](../index.html)


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site v0.14.6 · data as of 2026-10-23T16:04Z · vault commit 1845598d9a38 · https://php.oct.2026.newsroom.sgit.ai/sources/ia-acs-article-2026-govt-sites-go-down-after-ai-finds-critical-php/index.html