PHP hacks, Russia-Ukraine strikes, Brazil's phone problem (Updated)

Hi, I'm Tara Oaks, in Liverpool. And I'm Christopher Waldjasper in Chicago. It's Thursday, October 22nd. Today, hacking attempts surge after a flaw was discovered in a key web programming language. An American teacher held in Russia is back on US soil. While Russia and Ukraine exchange fresh attacks, despite new plans for peace talks. The phone theft becomes a hot-button issue in Brazil's elections. This is Reuters World News, bringing you everything you need to know from the frontlines in ten minutes, seven days a week. Global firms and governments on Thursday rushed to patch critical flaws in PHP. That's the programming language that underpins much of the internet. Bloodflare says hacking attempts surged after the flaws were disclosed. That's thousands in the hours before the announcement and millions after. The vulnerability appears to have been hiding deep in the code for years. They were uncovered with the help of AI tools developed by Google and OpenAI. Banks, airlines, rail, and tax services from Tokyo to Helsinki suspended some services as a precaution. Cybersecurity reporter Rafael Satter says that AI has also created a challenge for sites to patch those systems before attackers move in. AI has really compressed the timelines here. It could take days, weeks, maybe even months before attackers try to figure out how to take advantage of a weakness that had been patched. Now AI tools enable attackers to do that in a matter of minutes. And that's why it's so important for defenders to get ahead start and why it was so troubling that news leaked early. And that's in part why we've seen such disruption online with a lot of government websites and other websites just simply being yanked offline because it was feared that hackers would be able to attack those sites before patches could be applied. Rafael says that while most people probably haven't heard of PHP, they encounter it every day which makes the stakes here unusually high. Civic organizations, governments, major companies are likely going to take really aggressive moves to make sure that their systems are either offline or properly patched. But there's a whole universe out there of people who run personal websites, small store front, small businesses, all of that who run their sites on shared servers. They may not even know who updates their PHP instance. But for those people, that's the big worry and that's an enormous long tail of a website orders and operators who just simply may not be aware of what's going on and may find their sites very vulnerable right now. Meanwhile, major US banks have detected unauthorized AI agents operating inside customer accounts. That's according to a report from Axios inciting people familiar with the matter. Some of those agents appear to have taken actions independent of user instructions. Morgan Stanley, Bank of America, JP Morgan and Wells Fargo are among the banks racing to contain the risks, according to the report which Reuters could not immediately verify. Russia and Ukraine have exchanged fresh attacks overnight, even as Moscow signaled willingness to restart US-brokered peace talks. Ukraine says Russia fired at least 21 ballistic missiles at Kiev, with President Volodymyr Zelensky saying three carried cluster munitions, or bomblets which are banned by many countries because of the risks they posed to civilians. Russia said Ukraine launched 630 drones towards Moscow. The two sides also exchanged war dead, a step that in the past has accompanied moves towards talks. For a meeting with President Volodymyr Putin in St. Petersburg, US envoy Steve Whitkoff says Russia is prepared to resume talks with Ukraine next month. It comes amid growing pressure on Ukraine to reach a deal, and signs of strain in the Washington Kiev relationship, including reported disruptions to intelligence sharing and military satellite access. Foreign policy editor Don Duffy says there are a few reasons President Trump might be pushing for progress in this conflict now. The rising cost of energy globally has been a big political problem for Trump's Republican party. The main cause of that of course has been the Iran War, but the Ukraine conflicts has played a role as well. Ukraine has very successfully been striking refineries inside Russia, and that is contributed to the rising energy cost. It has to be said though that Iran remains sort of the main factor here. Trump is frustrated about that, and I think he sees putting pressure on Ukraine and getting some sort of a peace deal as a way of potentially lowering energy costs and improving his party's chances at the ballot box. Don says that despite Russia's friendly posture in the meeting with Whitkoff, Putin has shown little appetite for compromise in talks with Kiev. What I think is important to note however, is that certainly in public, the Russians have given no indication that they're backing off from their core demands, you know, which include getting hold of the rest of the Donbass territory that they don't currently hold, ensuring that Ukraine never joins NATO and some other things. Russia has very little to lose from these conversations. The Trump administration has shown little willingness to put, you know, really intense pressure on Moscow to compromise in this conflict. And for Vladimir Putin, who is, you know, his signal that he has determined to continue on with his assault in Ukraine, being moved by the U.S. to encourage talks, also to put pressure on Ukraine, which was happening in parallel here, you know, is very welcomed to him. During the meeting, Putin made what he called a "goodwill gesture", announcing the release of American prisoners Stephen Hubbard, a President Trump's request. Whitkoff praised Putin for the move. You are even very humanitarian also, sir, and I salute that, I commend you when I thank you again. From criticism from both Republican and Democratic lawmakers, the 74-year-old retired school teacher who was held in Russian custody since 2022 is now back on U.S. soil. Hubbard landed at a military installation in San Antonio, Texas on Wednesday. Trump says nothing was exchanged for his release, and the Kremlin cites Hubbard's poor health as a factor in Putin's decision. The U.S. is taking new precautions in the Gulf, ordering non-emergency staff and their families out of its missions in Saudi Arabia, a security concerns grow across the region. The State Department says the Iran-Backed Houthis in Yemen have stepped up attacks on civilian infrastructure, like airports, causing casualties and disrupting travel. U.S. officials tell Reuters that the move could go beyond Saudi Arabia, with family members also being pulled from several other diplomatic posts in the Gulf. A new Mexico judge has ordered meta to pay $25 billion after a jury found the company misled consumers. The case centers are on allegations that a political consulting firm got access to Facebook data from millions of users without their consent. Judge Francis Matthew found that the state is entitled to over $200 billion in compensation, but reduced the figure. It's the latest blow for meta in New Mexico. Earlier this year, the state won nearly a billion dollars in two separate rulings over child safety on its platforms. Metas chief legal officer says the company is "confident it will win" on appeal. Now to Brazil, where there's a simple rule a lot of people follow. If you're out in public, don't look at your phone. That's because phone theft has become one of the country's biggest security concerns. Things like this, of content creator Tabitha Leng's window being smashed, and her phone being stolen while sitting in traffic are all too common. And when the presidential runoff days away, it's become a campaign issue for right-wing candidate Flavio Bolsonaro. And even when President Luis Ignacio Lula dissilva, "Como av leia provadi cruzite en el congreso na tono." Luciana Magales is in São Paulo, with more. Well, this is definitely a national issue in Brazil. If you ask Brazilians, the number one concern is violence. But cell phones, they kind of are a symbol of that, because we have so many people who are robbed every day. And even though the numbers are kind of falling, we still have last year more than 800,000 phones robbed. And this is what we know, because there are many people that do not think that it's worth going to the police and saying that their phone was robbed. So this is a serious problem, and so the candidates, the main candidates, they have proposals regarding cell phone theft. In the case of President Luis Ignacio Lula da Silva, he has raised the prison sentence for people who robbed cell phones from a minimum of four and maximum to ten years. That's it. Slavio. Bolsonaro, the senator who is a rival of Lula, wants to raise even more to a minimum of eight years in prison for anyone who robs a cell phone in Brazil. More on any of the stories from today, as well as more analysis and news shaping out world, check out Roaches.com or the Roaches app. There's a link in the description to download it and start getting pure news straight from the source. Don't forget to follow us!