Two critical vulnerabilities detected in the PHP software, which is widely used in the infrastructure of websites; It alarmed public institutions, online platforms and private organizations around the world.
Many organizations have temporarily disabled their sites or limited the services they offer while applying security patches.
Vulnerabilities called "PHP2Shell" can allow attackers to remotely run code on servers without the need for authentication.
According to data provided by the technology-focused The Insider Paper portal, PHP is used in approximately 69 percent of websites whose server-side language can be detected.
This ratio also explains why the deficits have such a wide impact.
"CLOSE THE SYSTEMS" WARNING FROM THE USA AND UK
After the vulnerabilities were announced, the US National Security Agency (NSA) and the UK National Cyber Security Center (NCSC) issued an urgent warning.
NSA recommended keeping affected systems offline if updates cannot be applied immediately.
The British cybersecurity agency NCSC also advised organizations that cannot quickly implement temporary measures to consider shutting down their systems.
Closing, restricting or maintaining sites in this process does not mean that the relevant institutions have been subjected to a cyber attack; As a matter of fact, some services were reactivated after precautionary interruptions.
Government offices and official portals were among those who blocked access to their sites as a precaution.
In the Netherlands, the Overheid.nl portal and the website of the Dutch NCSC were taken offline as a precaution.
It was reported in the country's press that the lower house of parliament, Tweede Kamer, and the National Institute for Public Health and Environment (RIVM) were also affected by the cuts.
In Finland, state information technology provider Valtori temporarily stopped public web services.
While the Belgian Ministry of Foreign Affairs blocked its websites, the French Ministry of Internal Affairs left its governorate websites offline.
In Germany, access to many sites within the federal information technologies provider ITZBund was cut off.
The Czech government has disabled its official site to install security patches.
In Australia, outages were seen on government sites, including cyber.gov.au, as authorities tried to close the gaps.
Security measures were not limited to the public sector only. The websites of the Port of Rotterdam and the Royal Dutch Football Association (KNVB) were temporarily closed as a precaution.
Irish news organization The Journal announced that its website was offline for a while while it strengthened its systems; The news center and mobile applications continued broadcasting during this period.
On the online platforms and forums front, the Wikimedia Foundation has shut down supporting systems such as Wikimedia Cloud Services and Phabricator in order to protect its infrastructure; Although there was no general crash, some Wikipedia users reported access problems.
While it was stated that the visual-based forum 4chan went into read-only mode while waiting for the PHP update, it was announced that the Something Awful forum was temporarily closed during the patch process.
Art community platform Fur Affinity announced that it will not provide service until the security patch is applied.
It was reported that Miraheze and Pinboard platforms also temporarily suspended access due to vulnerabilities.
