PHP Security Vulnerability Causes Large-Scale Shutdown of Government Websites in Europe

On October 21, multiple government websites in Europe and other regions were forced offline due to a serious security vulnerability discovered in the PHP programming language. Website operators urgently took measures to protect system security. The PHP development team announced on Tuesday that two critical security vulnerabilities had been identified and urged users to update immediately after the release of the fix. On Wednesday, the PHP team stated that a new version with the vulnerabilities fixed had been officially released. Reports indicated that hackers exploited the vulnerabilities to breach websites, prompting government agencies in countries like the Netherlands and Finland to proactively shut down some sites before the patch was released. PHP is one of the most widely used programming languages on the internet, with approximately 75% of websites utilizing PHP, and around 43% of websites globally supported by WordPress. This security incident has led to widespread disruptions of websites across multiple European countries, including the Port of Rotterdam in the Netherlands, the government portal Overheid.nl, the Dutch Football Association, and several hospital websites, all of which have been temporarily closed.