Organisations and businesses are scrambling to update their systems following the discovery of critical cyber-security flaws in PHP, a widely-used programming language that powers 70% of the world's websites.
PHP operates on web servers behind the scenes of a website to display pages to visitors. The PHP Foundation, the non-profit organization that maintains the programming language, warned that the vulnerabilities could allow an unauthenticated attacker to remotely execute code on servers running PHP under the right conditions.
A number of sites appeared to have been taken offline on Thursday, with disruption continuing after many sites were taken down on Wednesday as operators rushed to check if PHP was running within their systems and whether patches were required.
External cyber-security firm Wiz helped uncover the vulnerabilities, which surfaced this week. Cyber-security researchers using scans to check servers at risk noted that the rate of organizations implementing patches is not as quickly as might be hoped globally.
Cyber-security lecturer Rory Hopcraft stated that the government needed to ensure its own infrastructure is up-to-date. Hull also highlighted the extent of the task facing developers and engineers working to deal with the issue.
Researchers warned that these severe flaws could expose millions of unpatched sites to potential hacks. The UK government was among those that took some sites offline as a precaution.
According to cyber-security firm Wiz, external, which helped uncover the critical PHP vulnerabilities surfaced this week, PHP powers 70% of the world's websites.
Researchers warned the"severe"flaws could expose millions of sites using it to potential hacks if left unpatched - and the UK government was among those to take some sites offline as a precaution.