In simple terms, PHP is a language telling servers on the internet what to do. There is a problem with it, one that’s been known for a long time. But it wasn’t considered a major one because using this problem for hacking purposes was thought to be so much work nobody would use it.

Enter LLM agents. They have all the computing power in the world and time isn’t an issue. They used this vulnerability. And the internet panicked. Lots of smaller operations shut down as a precaution. I think there is a patch in the works. Edit: Patches are out already.

An embargo seems like a natural response to a threat like this. I’m not sure if it’s a good idea because I don’t know if you can just transition to using a different scripting language on any server. I understand it’s a fairly old language in internet terms. So it might be time to move on, I don’t know.

Edit: I think I misunderstood the question. The embargo people talk about is more like the iPhone review embargo. The new iPhone gets released to reviewers ahead of public release so they can test and produce their pieces. And the embargo end day is when they can release their findings. The PHP embargo is, I think, the movers and shakers behind the scenes agreeing to shut up about the details of a vulnerability until the patch is out. If they go public before the patch then more bad actors get the blueprint on how to exploit the vulnerability.

I will take no follow-up questions because I had it explained to me like I’m a 5yo.