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Discovery of Security Vulnerabilities

• Two critical security flaws were found in the PHP programming language, prompting immediate action from developers.
• Public institutions in several European nations, including Germany and France, temporarily shut down their websites as a precaution.
• PHP is used to power about 75 percent of identifiable websites, indicating a massive potential risk.
• Developers released a patched version on Wednesday, urging all users to update their systems immediately.

Developers of PHP, the open-source programming language that supports numerous websites, announced the identification of two critical security flaws on Tuesday (Krytyczne luki w PHP. Rządy w kilku krajach wyłączyły swoje strony – Onet) (Krytyczne luki w zabezpieczeniach. Zamknięto wiele stron internetowych – RMF24). The maintainers released a corrected version on Wednesday afternoon, urging all users to apply the update immediately.

International Response to the Threat

Public institutions in Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, Finland, and France took their websites offline as a precautionary measure, according to reports. Cybersecurity agencies in the United States, Australia, Japan, and across Europe also issued urgent advisories to site administrators. The warnings told users either to update PHP without delay or to take affected sites offline until the security patches were installed.

Scope of the Risk

PHP powers a substantial portion of the internet. Data from W3Techs, which monitors web technologies, indicates that PHP runs approximately 75 percent of websites whose programming language can be identified. The language is also the foundation of WordPress, which accounts for roughly 43 percent of all websites. Millions of sites could be vulnerable to attackers if they have not applied the necessary updates (Hakerzy mogą wykorzystać krytyczne luki w PHP. Zagrożone miliony stron internetowych | Technologie na Next Gazeta – next.gazeta.pl).

Recommended Actions for Site Owners

Administrators should install the latest PHP release without delay. If an immediate update is not feasible, the safest option is to temporarily remove the site from public access until the patch is installed. Owners of sites built on WordPress or other PHP platforms should verify that their hosting provider has applied the required fix.

Role of Artificial Intelligence in Detection

The vulnerabilities were reportedly identified with the help of artificial intelligence tools from OpenAI.