Dutch government, education websites taken offline for PHP programming language security flaws

By Seyma Erkul Dayanc

ISTANBUL (AA) - Several Dutch government, media and education websites were taken offline Wednesday as a precaution after two serious security vulnerabilities were identified in the widely used PHP programming language, Dutch public broadcaster NOS reported.

Affected services included the DigiD digital identification system, the MijnOverheid government portal, the Dutch parliament’s website and the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC).

Several higher education systems and the NotuBiz platform used by around 100 municipalities were also taken offline.

The vulnerabilities could reportedly let attackers execute code remotely on affected servers and potentially take control of systems or access user data.

The NCSC said it had not detected active exploitation of the flaws but urged organizations to update PHP as soon as security fixes became available.

Cloudflare, a company that protects against cyberattacks, reported seeing initial attempts to exploit the vulnerabilities.

A permanent fix was expected later Wednesday.

Şeyma Erkul Dayanç