Government websites across Europe went offline today (Wednesday) following the discovery of two critical security flaws in PHP, a programming language used by a vast portion of websites worldwide. Fears that hackers could exploit the vulnerabilities prompted government authorities to take preventive measures and pull their sites from the internet, according to Reuters.
1+According to the report, developers of the programming language announced last night that they had identified two critical security vulnerabilities and urged site operators to update their systems as quickly as possible, immediately upon release of the patch. At the same time, reports began coming in of hackers already exploiting the flaws to breach websites, leading authorities in the Netherlands and Finland, among others, to take their sites offline as a precaution.
The main concern stems from PHP’s widespread use—it powers popular content management systems including WordPress, Drupal, Joomla, and Magento. That means a huge number of websites around the world could be exposed to attack attempts.
1+Following these developments, cyber agencies in Europe, Australia, Japan, and Britain called on site operators to urgently update their systems or temporarily disable them until patches are installed. The Netherlands’ National Cyber Security Centre also took its own website offline, explaining it was a preventive measure.