European Public Agencies Shut Down Websites Amid AI Hacking Alert

As a critical security vulnerability discovered in PHP, a programming language widely used across the internet, triggered a hacking alert, a significant number of European countries have begun proactively taking their major websites offline on the 21st local time as a preventive measure.

According to Reuters, multiple state institutions in the Netherlands switched their public-facing websites offline in accordance with recommendations from the National Cyber Security Centre.

Services were suspended for the Port of Rotterdam, Europe's largest port, as well as government portals, the Royal Dutch Football Association, major political party websites, and major hospital websites.

In Finland, widespread access disruptions are occurring as government public network services have been switched offline as a preventive measure.

KOMBIT, an IT company for local governments in Denmark, also announced that it has suspended multiple services, including public school communication platforms.

In Belgium, state institutions such as the Foreign Ministry and the Cybersecurity Centre, along with local governments including the Flemish government and parliament websites, proactively suspended website operations. Furthermore, access is being blocked in the private sector, including the school platform Smartschool and major media websites, according to the Belgian English-language newspaper The Brussels Times.

The Brussels Times reported that notices posted on the inaccessible websites explained that services were suspended due to system maintenance work, without mentioning the PHP security issue.

Previously, the European Union (EU) issued a security advisory the day before stating that hacking concerns have grown due to a security vulnerability found in PHP, urging that it be upgraded as soon as the PHP developer distributes a security patch.

EU cybersecurity authorities emphasized that if applying security patches is difficult, the option of taking the respective websites offline should be considered.

(Photo: Getty Images)
※ Please note: This article was translated by AI and may contain errors.