OpenAI says GPT-5.6-Sol helped find the PHP flaws now shaking the internet

OpenAI says its AI models helped uncover the critical PHP security flaws that have websites across the internet scrambling.

In a blog post on Wednesday , the company said it had spent the past two months leading a coalition of PHP maintainers, security researchers, and security companies to deal with the vulnerabilities, now nicknamed "PHP2SHELL." In its own Wednesday blog post, the PHP foundation thanked OpenAI , among other industry partners and cybersecurity researchers.

The newly exposed flaws could allow attackers to take over servers running PHP, the programming language behind a large share of the web.

OpenAI called the bugs one of the most impactful security problems in recent memory.

SEE ALSO: PHP vulnerability: PHP security issues today explained According to OpenAI, security firm Calif found one of the critical flaws using the company’s GPT-5.6 Sol model as part of Patch the Planet, an OpenAI security program.

Security company Wiz also discovered and reported both vulnerabilities on its own, OpenAI said.

PHP’s maintainers led the work on the fixes.

OpenAI, Wiz, Cloudflare, and other partners contributed research and helped prepare protections before the flaws went public.

OpenAI President Greg Brockman added more detail in a post on X .

He said PHP was the first programming language he learned, which gave him a personal connection to the work.

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According to Brockman, the bug had existed in PHP for 14 years.

A smaller version of it was found in 2024 , but wasn’t treated as serious at the time.