13 countries shut down government websites due to vulnerability in programming language

In at least 13 countries, many government websites were disabled due to a critical vulnerability in the PHP programming language.

Such information follows from TASS calculations based on reports of government press services and the media. The Netherlands, Finland and Belgium were the first to disable official websites. Later it became known about the suspension of a number of government portals in Austria, Great Britain, Denmark, Latvia, Slovakia, USA, France, Germany, the Czech Republic and Japan.

The U.K. and U.S. governments have issued a warning demanding that all systems running the PHP programming language be checked for malicious activity.

In addition to government websites and services, several media sites in Europe suffered, including Rapporteur and LMS portals, web resources of BBC, RTL and Latvian Radio. Internet platforms of some universities in Germany and Austria, a number of educational programs and football clubs were also shut down.

Earlier on Wednesday, the EU Computer Emergency Response Team announced the discovery of two critical vulnerabilities in the PHP programming language that could lead to data leakage, Reuters reported.