Mass website shutdowns in the Netherlands due to PHP vulnerabilities

Dutch authorities and organizations urgently took websites offline after PHP vulnerabilities were discovered that allow remote takeover of servers. The website of the lower house of parliament, services of educational institutions and other organizations are unavailable. A security update was promised by 17:00 Moscow time.

Javlon TursunovFirst published on tafs uz 1 min read
Mass website shutdowns in the Netherlands due to PHP vulnerabilities

The key facts

  • Due to PHP vulnerabilities, websites of the Dutch parliament, NotuBiz, educational and research institutions have been taken offline
  • The vulnerabilities allow remote takeover of servers
  • A security update is scheduled for 16:00 local time (17:00 Moscow time)

Mass website shutdowns

A mass shutdown of websites has occurred in the Netherlands due to the threat of hacking associated with vulnerabilities in the PHP programming language. This was reported by the portal NU.nl, which was cited by Gazeta.Ru.

Which services are unavailable

According to the portal, the website of the lower house of the Dutch parliament is currently not working, as well as the NotuBiz platform for publishing statements by local authorities, the digital services of most educational and research institutions, and the pages of the police union ACP, the transport company EBS, and some football clubs.

Vulnerabilities and the update

The identified vulnerabilities, NU.nl notes, may allow attackers to remotely take control of servers. The release of a security update is scheduled for 16:00 local time (17:00 Moscow time).

More on this topic

Technology →
Technology

UK authorities took 32 government services offline due to critical PHP vulnerabilities

Due to vulnerabilities in the PHP programming language, dubbed php2shell, 32 UK government services are unavailable and four are operating partially. The government describes the shutdowns as mostly precautionary measures and states that no breaches occurred. The vulnerabilities, discovered with the involvement of OpenAI, affect, according to Wiz, 70% of the world's websites; Cloudflare and Amazon are recording millions of attack attempts.

Sevara Azamova
3 min read
Technology

Governments and companies worldwide take websites offline due to critical PHP vulnerabilities

British, German, French and other government websites were temporarily taken offline as a precaution after two critical vulnerabilities were discovered in the PHP programming language. Developers released updates, and cyber agencies recommended taking sites offline if patches could not be installed in time. Experts call the finding one of the most serious in recent years.

Sevara Azamova
3 min read
Technology

Governments and companies rush to patch critical PHP vulnerabilities

After critical vulnerabilities were discovered in PHP, the language powering a significant share of the world's websites, the governments of the UK, US, EU, Australia and Finland urged installing patches or taking sites offline. Amazon reported exploitation attempts on 17 and 21 October. The vulnerabilities, which had existed for at least ten years, were found by researcher Ryan Austin with the help of AI, but details leaked to social media ahead of schedule.

Sevara Azamova
3 min read