Global News Podcast - US and European websites go offline over security concerns

Episode Date: October 22, 2026

A cyber security flaw has prompted governments in Finland and the Netherlands and websites such as Wikipedia and the BBC to go completely dark temporarily. The flaws in a programming language were discovered by AI. PHP is a scripting language that powers 70 per cent of all websites in the world. Also: Three-way talks between Russia, Ukraine and the United States are scheduled to take place in Abu Dhabi next month to try to bring an end to the Russia-Ukraine war. We hear about an Iranian prisoner who went to extraordinary lengths to chronicle the brutal reality of life Inside one of the country's notorious jail's. Our correspondent details the rise in the number of wild elephants dying in Sri Lanka. The new rules that mean you won't have to clean up before you leave an Airbnb. And why John Malkovich is tipped for an Oscar for his performance in Wild Horse Nine.The Global News Podcast brings you the breaking news you need to hear, as it happens. Listen for the latest headlines and current affairs from around the world. Politics, economics, climate, business, technology, health – we cover it all with expert analysis and insight. Get the news that matters, delivered twice a day on weekdays and daily at weekends, plus special bonus episodes reacting to urgent breaking stories. Follow or subscribe now and never miss a moment. Get in touch: [e-mail]: The website of the Computer Emergency Response Team for the EU Institutions, Bodies and Agencies displays a warning message after critical vulnerabilities were detected in the PHP programming language Credit: Rob Engelaar - EPA/Shutterstock

This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. Growing businesses deal with the same problem. Too many tools, too much back and forth and not enough time. Odu helps bring it all together. It's an all-in-one business management platform, fully integrated from sales and accounting to inventory and marketing, so your team can spend less time chasing information and focus on growth. Whether you're in retail, manufacturing or service,

Odu gives you one place to manage your business. Visit Odu.com to book a demo. It's ODbolo.com. An observatory in space. This is the real deal. This is going to revolutionize astronomy. Capable of capturing light from the dawn of the universe. It can be real exciting for the astronomical community, I guess,

and for the whole world to see what Hubble really can do. From the BBC World Service, 13 minutes, Trouble with Hubble. the story of the Hubble Space Telescape. Listen now on BBC.com, the BBC app, or wherever you get to your BBC podcasts. This is the Global News podcast from the BBC World Service. Hello, I'm Ankara Desai and in the early hours of Thursday the 22nd of October, these are our main stories. Several government and public organisations in Europe and the US have temporarily taken their websites off.

line because of cyber security concerns. Russia and Ukraine have agreed to hold three-way talks with the US as Washington pushes to end the war between them. And we find out how a British man was able to hold down five full-time government jobs at the same time. Also in this podcast, hundreds of elephants in Sri Lanka have died, marking a sharp increase from the previous year. And...

She managed to smuggle these out over the course of seven... And then when she was freed in 2017, she transcribed all these scraps, turned them into her memoir. The Iranian prisoner who went to extraordinary lengths to chronicle the brutal reality of life inside one of the country's notorious jails. It's been described as one of the most impactful security issues in recent memory. Serious security flaws have been discovered in software used by the majority of websites around the world. from the governments of Finland and the Netherlands, right through to websites like Wikipedia and here at the BBC. It's prompted some parts of the internet to go completely dark.

The flaws were discovered by AI with cybersecurity firm Wiz, saying they were the most severe vulnerabilities ever discovered by the tech, which is reshaping the cyber landscape. I asked our technology reporter Lily Jamali, how this happened? Yeah, so this happened because there were these vulnerabilities discovered by a cybersecurity company called WIS. They found flaws in a programming language that's called PHP. So PHP is used all across the internet.

More than two-thirds of websites and apps depend on it. And what happened next is that multiple governments issued these alerts to organizations and institutions around the world, including us, to say there is a patch for this flaw. You have to apply it right away. Because if you don't, bad actors can exploit. the vulnerability. And so organizations that needed some time to apply that patch, as it's called, were advised to bring their websites on their own. And so that's what happened. We saw, as you said,

governments from France to Finland and many other places bring pages, web pages down, as did some of the show pages for BBC programs. Okay, so what are the repercussions likely to be worldwide? Well, this flaw was discovered using AI. And I think that is really the big thing. theme here. USAI companies have been saying for months now, really since about April, May of this year, that their models are getting very good at hacking. So good actors can use that possibility, that capability to discover flaws that have been sitting there for sometimes years, sometimes for decades. They've found flaws using these systems. But of course, bad actors can also use them to bring down servers and steal data, take down websites. So this is an ongoing

issue. I think the repercussions could be governments taking a bigger role as these AI systems get more sophisticated. And in fact, the UK government just said that they're encouraging all organizations to understand what their exposure is and to do everything they can to safeguard their system. So I think the governments are really the guide here. Yeah, and you're spot on because you mentioned cyber attacks, especially those in recent months, which have hit retail firms, for example. Some people will be wondering also if they've got phones and obviously they use tablets or people. and laptops, what can they do to safeguard themselves? Yes, all of those things are things we should be thinking about.

But I don't think there's a whole lot that individuals like us can do right now. You know, Japan's government, for example, did say, you know, people should check if their publicly available websites run on PHP, pretty good odds that they do. It's really up to staff at these organizations that are running these websites to be aware that the landscape is changing so fast right now. the programming language, PHP, also, is everywhere. So cybersecurity experts that we've been speaking to say there's so much software out there that's offered by companies who don't even advertise that it runs on PHP.

So worth noting that it's not always that obvious. Lily Jamali reporting from San Francisco. President Trump has said that an end to Russia's war against Ukraine could be closer than ever. Without explaining why that might be the case, he was speaking after his. his envoy, Steve Whitkoff, met the Russian leader of Vladimir Putin in St. Petersburg. Mr. Whitkoff described the talks as constructive. But overnight officials in Ukraine said Kiev has been attacked with ballistic missiles and explosions have been heard in the cities of Kharkiv and Denepro.

Our Russia editor, Steve Rosenberg, reports from Moscow. In the Constantine Palace of St. Petersburg, in the Oval Hall, not the Oval Office, President Putin hosted President Trump's special envoy. As a goodwill gesture ahead of the talks, the Kremlin leader had freed a 74-year-old American from a Russian jail, retired teacher Stephen Hubbard. Steve Whitkoff was very impressed. My president and President Trump, being an humanitarian,

you are humanitarian also, sir. I salute that, I commend you, and I thank you again. More than four and a half years ago, Russia's humanitarian leader, launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine. And after today's meeting, there is no sign that President Putin is about to end the fighting. The Kremlin did say that next month it may be willing to resume talks with the US and Ukraine on ending the conflict. But right now, the war goes on. And yet despite that, Russia and America continue to improve relations.

In recent days, President Trump has paused some sanctions on Russia. and he's agreed to buy Russian diesel. He's also been bitterly critical of President Zelensky, all of which has gone down incredibly well in Russia. Steve Rosenberg in Moscow. Well, I asked our chief North America correspondent Gary O'Donohue if this round of meetings was any different. There's a lot of positive rhetoric, if you like,

but as far as we know, what has so far been achieved is a potential resumption of technical talks, So not at the sort of leader level, potentially between Ukraine, Russia and the United States, sometime perhaps in November. And of course, we've had those before. What could be new for this proposal, Gary? Because it feels as though for Ukraine and President Zelenskyy, a bad deal could be worse than no deal. Yeah, I mean, it's difficult to see whether war aims have changed for either Ukraine or Russia. Ukraine wants to exist in its current borders.

Russia was dead set on annexing Ukraine. Russia still wants the whole of the Donbass. Ukraine has offered to freeze its front line at the moment where it is. There's the question of NATO membership, which again is potentially one of those things in negotiation. But security guarantees post-any deal is a problem. You know, having peacekeepers on the ground or NATO troops in there would be something that Russia couldn't agree to.

It's difficult to know where the movement is. You know, there was that attempt for a ceasefire around energy infrastructure where A lot of pressure from Donald Trump on the Ukrainians to stop bombing oil refineries. But Russia continued to hit the power grid inside Ukraine. So Ukrainian has started again hitting oil refineries. There's perhaps a lot of desire to end this war, but the basic facts haven't changed. For Donald Trump, the midterms are fast approaching, a lot of pressure on. He seems to be continuing to attack President Zelensky by saying that he's at fault for the rising prices in diesel.

and he's worried, obviously, that voters will switch away from Republicans. How much of a factor is this having with the US public? It's a huge factor here. I mean, you've got to remember that there are moments in the American cycle where America is weaker than at other moments. And the run up to a mid-term election is one of them for a US administration, for any president. This is where public opinion here matters even more than it does typically at other times.

They're susceptible. There are domestic pressures, and diesel and gas is one of those big domestic pressures at the moment. Now, no one believes that the deal that was done to remove sanctions after having imposed sanctions on Russia or the deal with luke oil or anything like that is going to lower diesel prices before the midterms themselves. But part of the reason will be political to send a sort of message that we're doing something about your costs. You might not feel it yet, but we're doing it. And so these are enormously sort of intertwined issues, these global security questions, and then these nitty, gritty, domestic questions right down at the district level

when you're on the ground and people say gas, diesel is too expensive. Gary O'Donohue in Washington. A book chronicling life inside Iran's prison system provides frank and shocking insight into how the regime deals with those it considers to be its opponents. Open Wide the Doors is by the prize-winning poet and writer Mavish Sabat, who has been behind bars for most of the last 15 years and is a prominent member of Iran's Baha'i faith. It's a religion that emerged in the 19th century in Persia, only to be persecuted repeatedly by a succession of Iranian regimes ever since. The book has been translated into English by Baha'ihajia Nakhjavani, who's also Baha'i. She's been speaking to my colleague, James Menendez.

a bit of a litmus test for the sense of security or insecurity of any given government of Iran. So in the 19th century, they were being targeted as Russian spies. In the later 19th century, beginning of the 20th century, there were British spies. Then, of course, they became American spies and most recently Zionists and Israeli spies. But why they've been targeted, I think, is also because they've emerged from Iran itself, Any regime doesn't want to admit that the Baha'is of Iran with ideas of equality, gender equality, religious tolerance, democratic means of governance are actually coming from Iran itself. They're perceived as a threat. And Mavash is one of the leaders, essentially, which is presumably why she was targeted. Well, I think she was targeted too because she was appointed to replace the elected leadership of the Baha'i community.

The institutions democratically elected were disbanded at the beginning of the Islamic Revolution, and individuals were appointed to take care of the needs of the Baha'i community. Because every need, including employment, education, all the way to burial, was being denied the Baha'is. And someone had to take care, just basically of burials, even. This has become a very critical issue. It's hard when a Baha'i dies to be allowed to be buried. So all of these needs were taken care of by the so-called Yaran-Iran Iran. And Mahfash was the secretary of this group.

And essentially, the book is a prison memoir, and it's very grim. No holds barred. She's very honest about the suffering. But one of the unique aspects of this prison memoir, because there are several coming out, I mean, we're surrounded by the voices of women coming out of the prisons of Iran. But Mahvash somehow manages, in spite of this dark cafe, She's world in which she finds herself to keep her equilibrium, to keep her sense of humour, it's really rather remarkable,

to keep her sense of decency. How did she get the words out? I mean, that process. Yes. Most of the prisoners in Nevin and other prisons managed to do it in a similar sort of way, because if they're lucky, they find a pen. Sometimes it's slithers of tissue paper, the margins of newspapers that are used in the toilets,

and they scribble on these scraps of paper, as Maffash did, and they have the second terror which is to hide these scraps. Maffash put them in her clothes, in her bra. She slept on them to flatten them. And then the third miracle was getting them out. And that she managed to do through the courage, the determination of her cellmates once she was out of solitary confinement. And they stuffed them in their hems of their dresses and their coats.

She managed to smuggle these out over the course of seven years. And then when she was freed in 2017, she transcribed all these scraps, turned them into her memoir. She's not due to be released till 2032. Do you know how she is? She was granted a medical furlough to have open heart operation. And since then, she's on this medical furlough, which is a sort of form of extended psychological torture. Any moment, she can be summoned back to prison. Apparently, summoned back two days ago again. And her husband went and said,

if you have her go to prison, she will die. Bahia Nakhjavani, speaking to James Menendez. Still to come in this podcast. Eastern Ireland, its indigenous name is Rapani. You shouldn't even know the word indigenous at your age. Why John Malkovich is tipped for Oscar. Glory in his latest film Wild Horse 9. Growing businesses deal with the same problem.

Too many tools, too much back and forth and not enough time. Odu helps bring it all together. It's an all-in-one business management platform, fully integrated from sales and accounting to inventory and marketing, so your team can spend less time chasing information and focus on growth. Whether you're in retail, manufacturing or service, Odu gives you one place to manage your business. Visit Odu.com to book a demo. It's O'DO.O.com.

The Hubble Space Telescope was designed to peer deeper into the universe than ever before, unlocking some of its greatest secrets. But after launch, a devastating flaw emerged. The significant spherical aberration appears to be present in the optics. National disaster. Hubble launched with flawed mirror. The BBC Space Podcast 30 Minutes is telling the inside story, of how NASA rescued Hubble. The future of space astronomy depends on it. From the BBC World Service, 13 minutes, trouble with Hubble.

Listen now on BBC.com, the BBC app, or wherever you get your BBC podcasts. This is the Global News Podcast. The Sri Lankan government says 455 wild elephants died last year. That's a sharp increase from the year before. As forests shrink, elephants are being pushed closer to villages in search of food, and that's leading to more dangerous encounters with people. The human toll is also rising, making Sri Lanka one of the deadliest places in the world for human elephant conflict. It's a growing problem in a country that's home to around 5,800 wild elephants.

Our global affairs correspondent and Barasanethirajan has more. Last year, it spiked up to 455, whereas the previous area, it came down to 388 from again another 400 figure. Now, hundreds of elephants are being killed in Sri Lanka over the years. This has caused a huge concern for conservation. The elephants are treated as a sacred animal because it plays a crucial role in religious events and also economies. For as a tourism economy, people come to Sri Lanka to see these elephants in the wild,

gathering near the waterholes and the lakes and rivers. They go on visit many of these elephant sanctuaries, but it is also causing problem for people, especially after the end of the civil war, 2009. I was in Sri Lanka a couple of years ago doing exactly the story. What people were saying was people started going and settling in areas, which they are not able to go there because of security reasons. So that is expanding these settlements. As a result, elephant corridors are being cut.

So the elephants which are used to moving all across, now suddenly find that there is a settlement. So they come into contact with human beings, and that's where the clash occurs, where people are using variety of crude methods, like what they call it jaw bombs. You know, elephant can pick up this, eat, and then sometime it explodes in the mouth.

And that's very cruel. And also using illegal guns. In fact, last week there was a very famous elephant was shot, and he died of illness and injuries called Kavanthesai, a three-meter-high elephant. So it is an increasing problem, not only for elephants, but also humans. Sri Lanka already has this, what you call,

as legal electric fencing, where, you know, villages are protected, but they do not give you. very strong electric current. So the illegal ones, people just take the current directly from the wires and then they're connected. That means that can prove fatal. So the government is now taking action against those who are putting up these illegal fences, number one.

And two, you have to live side by side. That's why they're encouraging people not to grow crops, which are attracting elephants. And also climate change, you know, whenever there is no water, there is not enough food. That's why people are talking about, you know, make this law tougher. and at least enforce the law, even though it is punishable by killing elephants, it's hardly implemented because of political and various reasons. And that's why people are calling for a change in agriculture and more robust law enforcing agencies.

Ambrassan Etirajan. If you've ever been exhausted after a long week of full-time work, the details in this next story might surprise you. A British man has been accused of juggling up to five full-time government jobs. In court on Wednesday, he admitted making mistakes, but insisted he wasn't a criminal. Prosecutors say the man managed to keep his overlapping jobs a secret because he was working from home. Our employment correspondent Zoe Conway told Sili Hatton more about these extraordinary allegations. It is an incredible story and it is also an incredible amount of taxpayers' money.

We are talking about $380,000 that he's accused of fraud. fraudulently earning, and he was holding down multiple government and public sector jobs at the same time. The period we're talking about that's caught so many people's attention is the spring of 2023. So by this point, we're out of the COVID lockdown, but he's working entirely from home. Kashim Chowdhury had five jobs during this period at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, the UK Health Security Agency, the Food Standards, the Department for Business and Trade and the Home Office. And to be clear, he was being paid full-time salaries during this period. And the prosecution says that he was contracted to do 183

hours a week, which is more than the number of hours that exist in seven days. And as you say, the prosecution alleged he did this by working entirely from home and through the use of sick notes. In his defence, what Mr. Chowdhury has said is that, yes, I may make. a mistake, but I don't believe there was criminal intent. And he's talked a lot about feeling overwhelmed and stressed. His mother was dying through some of this period. He was her sole carer. And so he's talked about his recurring post-traumatic stress disorder, that all this work was a lifeline for him. He's been charged with nine counts of fraud. He denies acting dishonestly or intending to make a dishonest gain. How is this alleged to have all gone wrong for him? He was

juggling these jobs, we believe, and then what happened? Well, we get to autumn the fall of 2023, and he leaves these jobs because his managers are complaining about his poor performance. And then the fraud service catch up with him in 2024. But of course, he denies all the charges. Zoe Conway. Now, have you ever stayed in an Airbnb only to find a list of cleaning jobs waiting for you in the checkout instruction?

Well, your next day could come with fewer chores. Beginning next month, Airbnb hosts will face restrictions on the checkout tasks they can set guests, including washing dishes and doing the laundry. I spoke to the newsrooms Helena Burke about these new rules. The exact wording from Airbnb and what hosts won't be allowed to ask of guests is anything that requires significant effort or time or would typically be performed by a cleaner.

So Airbnb says that includes things like asking guests to remove sheets from bed and put them in the washing machine, expecting them to wash and put away dirty dishes, or asking guests to take rubbish off-site out of the Airbnb. Okay, so what's prompted these new restrictions then? Airbnb hasn't explicitly stated why they're introducing these new rules for hosts, but there has certainly been a lot of discourse around checkout expectations in Airbnb's ever since the platform launched in 2008. If you've ever booked an Airbnb, you probably notice that many of them come with a cleaning

fee. And this can range from $40 up to a few hundred dollars. And what guests take issue with is that with some of the listings, you have to pay the cleaning fee. And also on top of that, you have to clean the place yourself. And it's that that many people feel is unreasonable. Okay. So what has a reaction been from Airbnb guests and host to this rule change? You said that some people do find it unreasonable? Yeah. So because of that, there has been a lot of positive reaction to it from people who typically stay in Airbnb's as guests. Online, some people have even said that, This requirement to clean up at the end of their stay and an Airbnb has made them turn away from the platform completely and use hotels instead where housekeeping manages all of that stuff. And these people say that now these restrictions are introduced on what can be asked of guests, they'll actually start using Airbnb's again.

There has been some backlash from hosts, though. Some of raised concerns that banning requirements like cleaning dishes or taking out the rubbish will lead to hygiene issues, bad smells and increased risk of attracting rodents or flies. Some other hosts have also warned that they'll have to pay cleaners more to do more work. So they'll have to clean dishes with caked on food or wait around while the washing machine cycle finishes. And they say that this increased in costs of cleaners will force them to then raise the cleaning fees paid by guests. Despite these concerns raised by hosts, though, MNB is pushing ahead with these new rules and they'll apply to all listings everywhere in the world from the 20th of November. Helena Burke.

The acclaimed Irish filmmaker Martin McDonough has made what is being seen as his most political movie to date. Wild Horse Nine has been on the festival circuit in recent weeks in the run-up to its release in cinemas early next month. It's being tipped as a possible Oscar contender with a much-praised performance from its leading man, John Malkovich. Alan Maloney caught up with the director and cast on the red carpet. Two men, a remote location, violence,

and plenty of humor. Wild Horse 9 is very clearly from the mind of Oscar-winning London Irish director Martin MacDonough. Wow, first big heads. It follows two CIA operatives, played by Sam Rockwell and John Malkovich, as they take a trip to Easter Island or Rapanui off the coast of Chile in 1973. Eastern Island, its indigenous name is Rapanu. Yeah. You shouldn't even know the word indigenous at your age. MacDana's last film, The Banshees of Inishyran, was nominated for nine Academy Awards. That film took place on a remote island off the coast of Ireland, with the horrors of the Irish Civil War in the background. In contrast, Wild Horse Nine has Chile's violence spread onto Easter Island and have a direct consequence and lasting impact on the characters there.

It's a bold and deliberately political move from McDonough. with Malkovich and Rockwell's characters directly involved in laying the groundwork for the overthrow of the democratically elected socialist government. It's all about the CIA and Chile and what they did in 1973, which is pretty despicable stuff, and what they did throughout most of the century. So you can't really make a film like that without being a bit angry about it. While the political events depicted in the film maybe from over 50 years ago, Chilean actress Marianna de Girolamo,

who plays the role of idealistic college. student Monica, believes they remain relevant for modern audiences. I think that we need to keep having these conversations and keep our memory alive. It's with art, with culture, and we need to protect that, especially in this moment. Very few filmmakers today are able to handle tonal shifts within a work like McDonough. And with his background as a playwright, there are a few better at crafting dialogue. Actor Sam Rockwell sees an evolution in McDonough as a bit of a work. a storyteller. I think there's a maturity to his filmmaking. Here I say he's an

uteur now. He's obviously a great writer. That view is echoed by fellow cast member John Malkovich. He is funny and very sad. I love his character's studies and way he writes. Terrific. How do you like your new president? Malkovich in particular, as the elder CIA agent coming to the end of his career, gives a wonderful performance, a combination of swagger and regret, mixed with a touch of lunacy that probably only Malkovich could manage. It's a performance that marks him down as a serious awards contender. The budget of Wild Horse Nine is reported to be as low as $5 million.

That's a tiny sum when compared to large Hollywood productions. And with an uncompromising story, witty script and fantastic performances, it's easy to see why many are predicting Oscar nominations for it in the future. Alan Maloney reporting. And that's all from us for now. If you want to get in touch, you can email us at global podcast at BBC.com. You can also find us on X at BBC World Service.

Use the hashtag Global NewsPod. Now, before we go, there's time to tell you that my colleague Celia Hatton teamed up with our journalists in Washington to decode US political jargon ahead of the midterm elections. So we're doing another special episode that we'd like you, our listeners, to get involved with. Hi, I'm Celia Hatton from the Global News podcast. We're working on a new special edition of

the pod that's looking at China and what lies ahead for its powerful leader, Xi Jinping. At the end of this month, the top ranks of China's Communist Party are meeting behind closed doors, and it's believed around that time, Xi Jinping could indicate the next generation of leaders to run the country. He's not stepping aside anytime soon, but we'll get a sense of what lies ahead for China, one of the world's superpowers. So we're hoping for your questions on China and its future. What do you want to know about Xi Jinping and how he operates? We'll try to tackle the answers for you. Send your emails and video and voice notes to the usual address, Global Podcast at BBC.co.com.

And this edition of the Global News podcast was mixed by Chris Lovelock and the producer was Emma Joseph. The editor is Karen Martin, and I'm Uncred Asai. Until next time, goodbye. The Hubble Space Telescope was designed to peer deeper into the universe than ever before, unlocking some of its greatest secrets. But after launch, a devastating flaw emerged. A significant spherical aberration appears to be present in the optics. National disaster.

Hubble launched with flawed mirror. The BBC Space Podcast 30 Minutes is telling the inside story of how, NASA rescued Hubble. The future of space astronomy depends on it. From the BBC World Service, 13 minutes, trouble with Hubble. Listen now on BBC.com, the BBC app, or wherever you get your BBC podcasts.