PHP exposed a critical security vulnerability, leading to the massive shutdown of government websites across multiple European countries.

October 21 - Due to a severe security vulnerability exposed in the widely used PHP programming language, multiple government websites in Europe and other regions were forced offline on Wednesday, with website operators taking emergency measures to protect system security. The PHP development team announced the discovery of two critical security vulnerabilities on local time Tuesday and urged users to update immediately after the release of repair patches. The PHP team stated on Wednesday that a new version fixing the vulnerabilities has been officially released. However, due to reports that hackers are exploiting the vulnerabilities to intrude into websites, government agencies in countries such as the Netherlands and Finland had preemptively shut down some websites before the patch was released.

PHP is one of the most widely used programming languages on the internet, powering website platforms such as WordPress, Drupal, Joomla, and Magento. According to data from website technology statistics agency W3Techs, about 75% of websites whose programming languages can be identified use PHP. Approximately 43% of websites worldwide are powered by WordPress, covering blogs, small business sites, government portals, e-commerce platforms, and news websites. This security incident has caused large-scale disruptions to websites in multiple European countries. The Port of Rotterdam in the Netherlands, the government portal Overheid.nl, the Dutch Football Association, the websites of the country's five major political parties, and multiple hospital websites have all been temporarily shut down.