What is PHP, and why are security flaws putting European government websites at risk?
Summary
Government websites across Europe went offline as operators rushed to patch two critical PHP vulnerabilities that could allow attackers to run commands on vulnerable servers. EU cybersecurity officials urged organisations that could not apply the fixes to take affected websites offline.
Key Points
- Two critical vulnerabilities in PHP have forced some European government websites offline while patches are prepared.
- CERT-EU warned that the flaws could enable unauthenticated remote code execution on vulnerable servers over the internet.
- The risks include stolen data, defaced pages and full-system compromise, especially for small sites on shared hosting.
- Researchers from Calif and Wiz reported the flaws after using AI models to identify them.
