Australian cyber agency’s site down after critical PHP flaw hits global government sites

What Happened

Australia’s Australian Signals Directorate (ASD) announced that its own website, cyber.gov.au, went offline following the disclosure of two critical vulnerabilities in the PHP programming language. The flaws were uncovered by an artificial‑intelligence tool and have been present in PHP for years. Developers of PHP released urgent security patches on Wednesday to close the gaps.

Reaction

ASD warned organisations and individuals using PHP to check the official PHP guidance and apply the new patches as soon as possible. Government portals in Europe and Asia were taken offline as a precaution, including sites in the Netherlands and Finland. The Dutch prime minister said he was closely monitoring the situation, while Japan’s prime minister, Sanae Takaichi, urged website owners to install the fix. The full ASD statement could not be opened, showing an error instead.

Context

PHP powers millions of websites, including those built on popular platforms such as WordPress. A server running PHP assembles page content before sending it to a visitor’s browser, so any flaw in the language can affect a huge number of online services worldwide.