SubscribeSign in{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","url":"https://thezvi.substack.com/p/the-hackening","mainEntityOfPage":"https://thezvi.substack.com/p/the-hackening","headline":"The Hackening","description":"Last week at a small conference, there was talk about a future event referred to as The Hackening.","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!E-VW!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F1d7a8141-4a99-41dc-8810-6890cb576cc4_1200x800.jpeg"}],"datePublished":"2026-10-23T21:13:08+00:00","dateModified":"2026-10-23T21:13:08+00:00","isAccessibleForFree":true,"author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Zvi Mowshowitz","url":"https://substack.com/@thezvi","description":"Zvi Mowshowitz writes at thezvi.substack.com (Twitter @thezvi) about a variety of topics, currently primarily AI, attempting to model the world. ","identifier":"user:10446622","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","contentUrl":"https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!8FQ8!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fbucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fe4e61e08-4086-4cba-a82c-d31d64270804_48x48.png","thumbnailUrl":"https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!8FQ8!,w_128,h_128,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fbucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fe4e61e08-4086-4cba-a82c-d31d64270804_48x48.png"}}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Don't Worry About the Vase","url":"https://thezvi.substack.com","description":"A world made of gears. Doing both speed premium short term updates and long term world model building. Currently focused on weekly AI updates. Explorations include AI, policy, rationality, medicine and fertility, education and games.","interactionStatistic":{"@type":"InteractionCounter","name":"Subscribers","interactionType":"https://schema.org/SubscribeAction","userInteractionCount":10000},"identifier":"pub:573100","sameAs":["https://twitter.com/TheZvi"]},"interactionStatistic":[{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":"https://schema.org/LikeAction","userInteractionCount":67},{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":"https://schema.org/ShareAction","userInteractionCount":7},{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":"https://schema.org/CommentAction","userInteractionCount":19}]}{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Don't Worry About the Vase","item":"https://thezvi.substack.com"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"The Hackening","item":"https://thezvi.substack.com/p/the-hackening"}]}The HackeningZvi MowshowitzOct 23, 202667197ShareLast week at a small conference, there was talk about a future event referred to as The Hackening. As in, within 6-12 months, many predicted that due to advanced AIs and AI agents the internet would become a severely hostile place. Some worried that this could rise to the level of ‘assume any phone connected to the internet is rooted’ and several people urged doing general crisis preparations on a personal level, in case of disruptions in supply lines, power, water or internet.
The biggest hack is a flaw in PHP, which can be exploited to take control of the computer running any website suing an unpatched version of PHP. There are many others.
On a personal level, you want to do at least some basic prep and get your security in order. It is cheap to do as a form of insurance, and being caught not having it when you need it is a large mistake. That doesn’t mean you should panic, or cancel travel plans or anything like that. But there is low hanging security fruit out there. Pick it.
Joshua Achiam (Formerly OpenAI): Feels like March 1, 2020 for Cyber. Not normal, something is happening. Internet lockdowns in a couple of months?
Multiple sources using GPT-5.6 Sol identified a critical flaw in PHP. Okay, identified two critical flaws in PHP. The plan was to deploy the patch first before announcing the flaw, but the embargo on the fix got broken more than six hours in advance, so here we are.
This article was aggregated automatically by CyberWire Daily's newsfeed engine. Original reporting: thezvi.substack.com.
