Artificial intelligence (AI) is helping security researchers identify software vulnerabilities and develop fixes, but the same capabilities are allowing attackers to find weaknesses and exploit them faster. This is increasing the pressure on businesses to patch their systems before cybercriminals can take advantage of the flaws, experts told CNBC-TV18.

The issue has come into focus after several government websites across Germany, France, the Netherlands, Belgium and Denmark were taken offline following the discovery of two critical vulnerabilities in PHP, a programming language used to power a large number of websites.

PHP developers have released updates to address the vulnerabilities and urged users to install them immediately. However, releasing a fix does not eliminate the risk if businesses continue to run affected software without applying the update.

Rajesh Chhabra, general manager of India and Asia at Acronis, and Mohit Anand, CEO and co-founder of Mitigata, said the growing use of AI was changing the speed of cyberattacks, making timely patching and basic cybersecurity measures more important.

AI can help security researchers identify flaws in software and develop fixes. Attackers can use the same technology to analyse vulnerabilities and work out how to exploit systems that remain unpatched.

Chhabra said the PHP incident demonstrated how AI could benefit both cybersecurity defenders and malicious actors. Once developers release a patch, attackers can examine the changes to understand the weakness that has been fixed and develop an exploit targeting systems that have not yet been updated.

“The gap between a patch and a working exploit is now measured in hours, not weeks,” Chhabra said.

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