Thousands of websites taken offline in Germany due to PHP vulnerability — The Local Germany

In Germany, numerous websites of government institutions, hospitals, universities, police and online services became temporarily unavailable due to a critical vulnerability in the widely used web technology PHP. Germany’s Federal Office for Information Security (BSI) warned that attackers could exploit the issue to take control of servers or gain access to sensitive data, The Local Germany reports.

Which services were affected

Part of Berlin’s official portal, berlin.de, as well as websites of hospitals, universities and the police, were unavailable. Berlin police also reported disruptions to the Internetwache online service for filing reports.

By Thursday morning, many resources had resumed operation after emergency updates were installed. In particular, some services in Rhineland-Palatinate, Saarland and Thuringia became available again, as did several police online services in North Rhine-Westphalia. At the same time, some major websites in that state remained unavailable.

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Risk for unpatched systems

According to BSI Vice President Thomas Caspers, there is currently no evidence of significant damage linked to this vulnerability. However, institutions warn that systems without updates remain at risk and that securing all affected websites could take months.

Disruptions were also recorded in France, Belgium and the Netherlands. Users of Wikipedia and Pokémon apps were warned about possible problems accessing services. Most users do not need to take any action, as the issue occurred on website servers rather than on phones or computers.