Government agencies and companies around the world shut down websites Wednesday after two critical flaws came to light involving PHP, a programming language that is the basis for a large share of the internet.
PHP sits underneath popular web design platforms so the weaknesses potentially affect a vast range of websites, from online stores and news outlets to government services.
PHP sits underneath popular web design platforms so the weaknesses potentially affect a vast range of websites, from online stores and news outlets to government services.
The flaws “often provide a direct path to the server’s file system or database,” the NSA said in a statement on X. “If you run PHP, it is imperative that you update now,” the PHP Foundation, which funds developers working on the language, said in a blog post. In France, local government websites, including the Paris Police Prefecture, have been inaccessible since Wednesday afternoon at the request of the French National Cybersecurity Agency, following “detection of a critical security vulnerability,” the Ministry of the Interior said. Belgium’s foreign ministry temporarily took its websites offline as a precaution, it said on X, although the Centre for Cybersecurity Belgium had recorded no attacks on Belgian sites.
