Major web sites in Europe and the US were briefly knocked offline Wednesday as operators raced to defend their systems from newly disclosed software program vulnerabilities that could give hackers control of servers.
The vulnerabilities, dubbed “PHP2Shell,” have an effect on PHP, an open-source programming language that works behind the scenes to run web sites, including those constructed on WordPress, Drupal and Joomla.
Nearly 70% of web sites use PHP, according to cybersecurity firm Cloudflare.
Major web sites in the US and Europe went down on Wednesday, Oct. 21, 2026. Gorodenkoff – stock.adobe.com
Website operators scurried to get the server working to keep away from hacks. SyedArshadJaved – stock.adobe.com
US-based web discussion board Something Awful briefly shut down its message boards, while the Wikimedia Foundation, which operates Wikipedia, disabled supporting providers as a precaution.
Germany, France, Belgium, Finland and the Netherlands also took authorities web sites offline, Reuters reported.
Hospitals, political organizations and the Port of Rotterdam were among those affected in the Netherlands.
Websites went down in Germany, France, Belgium and Finland. ABCreative – stock.adobe.com
Cloudflare reported detecting attacks focusing on the flaws, although widespread profitable breaches have not been confirmed.
Researchers at cybersecurity firm Wiz demonstrated how hackers could exploit the vulnerabilities to seize control of servers without logging in.
The flaws carry vital severity rankings of 9.2 out of 10.
A view highlights the advanced connectivity and knowledge circulation within a busy server. Jonathan – stock.adobe.com
An engineer works on a laptop computer pc displaying a padlock icon in a fashionable server room. everythingpossible – stock.adobe.com
PHP builders launched emergency security patches Wednesday, warning that short-term safeguards can not totally defend susceptible systems.
The PHP Foundation acknowledged that indicators of one underlying drawback surfaced during a 2024 security audit but remained unresolved amid technical challenges and restricted engineering assets.
