Governments and companies take websites offline over PHP flaws

Government agencies and companies across Europe, Japan and elsewhere temporarily shut down websites and online services while addressing two critical security flaws in PHP, according to The Korea Times. Several organizations said the shutdowns were precautionary, with no confirmed breaches.

The disruptions reached government information sites, hospitals, financial companies and transportation providers. PHP developers said fixes were available, while cybersecurity agencies advised organizations to consider taking affected sites offline if they could not apply updates in time.

According to The Korea Times, Germany's federal IT provider, ITZBund, disabled several websites as a precaution. A digital ministry spokesperson said there were no known security incidents. France's Interior Ministry also suspended prefecture websites while waiting for a patch from the publisher of their PHP framework.

Belgium's foreign ministry took its websites offline after reports of attacks exploiting the flaws, although the country's cybersecurity centre said it had recorded no attacks on Belgian websites. In Finland, state IT centre Valtori shut down public government web services and said it had found neither attempted exploitation nor a data breach.

Affected organizations in the Netherlands included the Port of Rotterdam, government portal Overheid.nl, football association KNVB, the country's five largest political parties and numerous hospitals. The Czech government took its website offline Wednesday at 7 p.m. local time to apply security patches, The Korea Times reported.

The Wikimedia Foundation said the vulnerabilities affected PHP-based systems operated by the foundation and volunteers, and it suspended some systems pending patches. The Internet Archive also took its portal offline for emergency maintenance and security updates; it had returned to service by the time of the report.

In Japan, government agencies and companies including Nomura, Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group, ANA and East Japan Railway suspended some online services. The BBC disabled some web portals and reported similar measures by municipalities, including Edinburgh, according to The Korea Times.

Canada's government warned that websites could become unavailable or experience disruptions. It said there was no indication that government systems or information had been compromised, according to The Korea Times.