Critical PHP flaws force European government websites offline

Security researchers discovered two critical vulnerabilities in the PHP programming language through AI-assisted research. A patch was released on Wednesday, but organizations that failed to apply it in time were advised to take their websites offline until systems were secured.

Belgium was among the hardest-hit countries. The Foreign Affairs, Finance and Labour ministries had their websites taken offline, along with numerous hospitals, media outlets and educational platforms. The Belgian Cybersecurity Centre (CCB) also shut down its own official website as a precaution.

The Netherlands saw several major digital services disrupted. The national digital identity system DigiD, the Rotterdam Port portal, Schiphol Airport’s mobile app and the House of Representatives website were all taken offline.

France, Germany and Finland also reported affected public websites. French police unit sites, various German government pages and Finnish government web services were temporarily disabled.

The Wikimedia Foundation, which operates Wikipedia, took some systems offline as a precaution, causing access problems to parts of Wikipedia on Wednesday. Digital art platform DeviantArt also temporarily closed its website citing maintenance.

Officials and experts stressed that the outages were preventive security measures, not the result of a confirmed cyberattack. The Belgian Cybersecurity Centre said no verified cyberattack had taken place despite the high risk level.