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Thirty-two UK government services have been taken offline and four others are partially unavailable as authorities respond to a critical cybersecurity vulnerability affecting PHP, a programming language widely used to run websites.
Technology Minister Baroness Lloyd of Effra confirmed the disruption in the House of Lords, saying the shutdowns were precautionary measures to allow security updates and other protections to be applied.
The threat, known as PHP2Shell, has prompted international concern. Security researchers reportedly identified the vulnerabilities with the assistance of artificial intelligence tools, while internet infrastructure provider Cloudflare recorded millions of attempts to exploit the flaw worldwide.
Downing Street stressed that taking services offline did not mean they had been successfully hacked. Officials also said no major public-facing critical services had been affected.
The Office for Budget Responsibility’s website was among those unavailable, although ministers maintained that preparations for the following week’s Budget had not been compromised.
Authorities have not published a complete list of affected government services. However, disruption has also been reported at local councils, including Edinburgh, Oxford, Bristol, Lambeth and Barnet, where some online services were temporarily withdrawn.
The National Cyber Security Centre worked with international partners and OpenAI ahead of the vulnerability’s public disclosure to coordinate protective measures.
The agency has also issued more than 50,000 proactive warnings to UK businesses and organizations, urging them to secure potentially vulnerable systems.
Government departments and affected organizations are applying updates and checking their systems as efforts continue to restore services.
Source: Omanghana
