Critical vulnerabilities discovered in the widely used PHP programming language have triggered millions of cyber attack attempts worldwide, sending website operators, financial institutions, and government agencies scrambling to secure their digital infrastructure.
Cloud services firm Cloudflare reported a massive escalation in malicious traffic following the public disclosure of the security flaws. According to Cloudflare CEO Matthew Prince, the firm’s network recorded thousands of exploit attempts in the 10 hours leading up to the public announcement. That figure accelerated sharply to tens of thousands of attempts in the 45 minutes immediately following the disclosure, surged to hundreds of thousands within two hours, and quickly escalated into millions.
Developers of the PHP programming language released urgent software updates on Wednesday to address the flaws, which had reportedly remained hidden within the code for years until they were uncovered using artificial intelligence. Maintainers of the software issued a strong warning, stating that all users were strongly encouraged to update their systems immediately.
The disclosure caused immediate operational disruptions across multiple sectors globally. Government websites in Europe and various other regions went offline on Wednesday as IT administrators rushed to apply security fixes and defend their networks against active exploitation.
In Japan, the impact was felt across both major financial institutions and government bodies. Japanese lender Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group announced the temporary suspension of select internet services as part of emergency defensive measures. Concurrently, Japan’s Finance Ministry temporarily suspended portions of its website content and online services while implementing necessary security updates.
Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi also intervened on Wednesday, publicly urging website owners throughout the country to verify whether their platforms rely on PHP and to prepare for the immediate application of the newly released software patches.
