Government websites taken offline after critical PHP flaws disclosed
Agencies in the Netherlands and Finland took sites offline as a precaution amid reports that hackers were exploiting the vulnerabilities.
Government agencies in countries including the Netherlands and Finland took websites offline following the disclosure of two critical flaws in PHP, a programming language widely used on the internet. The precautionary shutdowns came amid reports of hackers exploiting the weaknesses to gain access to websites.
PHP developers said they had identified the vulnerabilities and urged users to install an update as soon as a fix became available. Officials said versions from PHP 5 onward could be affected, but PHP had not yet specified which versions were vulnerable.
Cloudflare chief technology officer Dane Knecht said attacks were beginning to appear. The Web and cloud security firm was adjusting its firewall rules in response to emerging attack methods, but he stressed that these measures were temporary.
Wordfence, a WordPress security plugin, warned that automatic updates would not install the PHP fix. It advised website owners to establish who handles PHP updates for their sites, noting that every WordPress site uses a server with PHP installed.
Cybersecurity authorities across Europe, Australia, Japan and Britain urged users to update PHP immediately or keep affected websites offline until patches could be installed. The Dutch cybersecurity agency also took its own website offline as a precaution.
