Canadian Government Temporarily Takes Down Federal Websites Due to Cybersecurity Threat

 

 

The Canadian government has temporarily taken certain official websites offline following the discovery of a critical security vulnerability in the programming language that powers a vast majority of the world's websites. The security flaw was identified in PHP, the coding language used by approximately 70 percent of websites globally.

Cybersecurity experts have warned that this vulnerability in PHP could allow hackers to steal information or gain complete control over websites. Cloudflare has reported that initial attacks exploiting this flaw began to emerge as early as Wednesday.

Minister of Artificial Intelligence, Ivan Solomon, stated via social media that the government websites were taken down following a recommendation from the Canadian Centre for Cyber Security, which operates under the Communications Security Establishment (CSE). He added that the websites would be restored once the issue is resolved. The Cyber Centre has advised organizations and businesses that use PHP to install security updates immediately. Authorities have also requested that any websites for which an immediate fix is not possible be temporarily removed from the internet. The Canadian Internet Registration Authority has stated that typical Canadian internet users need not be concerned. However, companies and small businesses that operate their own websites should take the necessary security precautions as soon as possible.