PHP Foundation acknowledges "structural failure" led to delayed critical vulnerability fixes, with multiple government websites going offline as a precaution.

According to Cointelegraph, the PHP Foundation admitted that a critical security vulnerability discovered as early as 2024 has yet to be patched due to flawed decision-making processes and understaffing within the security team, calling the delay a structural failure. The vulnerability could allow unauthenticated attackers to remotely execute code on affected servers. On August 11, security firm Calif and OpenAI independently reported the same issue, with Calif also demonstrating unconditional remote code execution, prompting the matter to be elevated to the highest security priority. PHP released emergency patches for two related critical vulnerabilities on Wednesday. Around the time of the patch release, government websites or services in the Netherlands, Finland, France, Germany, and Australia were temporarily taken offline, with the Netherlands shutting down its digital identity service. The Wikimedia Foundation also took some supporting services offline, causing disruptions to certain Wikipedia features. Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi called on website operators to install the patches as soon as possible. In the crypto sector, monitoring by SlowMist's MistEye service found that out of 1,488 evaluated domains, 793 showed direct PHP fingerprints. Cardano governance organization Intersect temporarily took its member portal offline. Both Coinbase and BitGo stated that their platforms were unaffected. Binance co-founder Changpeng Zhao advised users to exercise extreme caution when visiting websites over the next few days. PHP security team