A critical security vulnerability in the PHP programming language has forced 32 UK government services offline, with global websites affected as cybersecurity chiefs warn of the most serious flaw discovered in five years.
The issue was first identified on Wednesday, prompting warnings to governments and companies worldwide to pull websites offline before they could be attacked. PHP is used for almost 70% of all websites on the internet.
UK Government Services Affected
Tech minister Baroness Lloyd of Effra told the House of Lords that 32 government services are currently unavailable and four are partially unavailable. She said this "has largely resulted from precautionary measures taken to protect systems while security updates and mitigations are applied".
She added that authorities are working closely with departments to "restore the services safely and securely". Downing Street said on Thursday that no large UK public-facing critical services have been affected, but some "limited" Government websites have gone dark while issues are resolved.
Global Impact and Expert Warnings
Ciaran Martin, the former chief executive of the UK's National Cyber Security Centre, described the flaw as "very bad", saying that while most internet software vulnerabilities didn't matter, this was "the most serious vulnerability discovered for five years".
Matthew Prince, the chief executive of the cybersecurity business Cloudflare, said the company encountered tens of thousands of attempts to exploit the weakness in the 45 minutes after the problem was announced, rising to "hundreds of thousands within two hours, and millions now".
The situation remains ongoing, with updates expected as security teams continue to apply mitigations and restore affected services.
