Ondrej Surý profile on saving the internet
The gist
Czech volunteer Ondřej Surý packaged patches for two PHP flaws that put up to 70 percent of websites at risk.
His story highlights how much of the internet rests on unpaid maintainers.
How it unfolded
- Oct 22, 2026Two vulnerabilities in the programming language PHP put enormous swaths of the internet in danger; by some accounts up to 70 percent of websites use PHP in some capacity.
- Oct 23, 2026Surý emerged as a key figure in efforts to protect websites worldwide. Once the patch was released, sites went offline to implement the fix, including government websites in Germany and Finland, some hospital and school sites in Europe, and international sites such as 4chan.
- Oct 27, 2026A BBC Tech Life episode, 'The man who saved the internet,' told the story of the PHP crisis; a week earlier few outside the tech world had heard of PHP.