Race to Update Services' Computer Systems After Cyber-Security Flaw Found
BBC News reports on a global scramble to update systems following the discovery of critical vulnerabilities in the widely-used programming language, PHP. Websites worldwide went offline on Wednesday and Thursday after PHP developers revealed these security flaws, potentially exposing millions of sites to hacking.
No successful attacks have been reported yet, but experts caution the impact may take months to fully reveal itself.
Downing Street stated that "some" limited government services were offline while security updates were applied. Baroness Lloyd of Effra, the tech minister, reported 32 government services were unavailable and four partially unavailable due to "precautionary measures."
Olly Whitehouse, Chief Technology Officer of the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC), described the event as "unprecedented" but assured there were "no indications" of successful breaches. The NCSC is receiving positive confirmation that affected organizations are receiving and acting on the provided advice.
What is PHP?
PHP (Hypertext Preprocessor) is a programming language that powers web development.