Millions of hacking attempts as companies, governments rush to patch critical PHP flaws

Companies and governments in Europe and elsewhere took websites offline as a precaution on Oct 21, after vulnerabilities were discovered in the widely used PHP programming language.

PHP flaws triggered millions of hacking attempts after urgent fixes were released. Companies and governments rushed to patch systems and were told to “update immediately”.

Websites and services were taken offline across Japan, Europe and elsewhere as a precaution. Banking, airline, rail, tax and government systems were affected.

Experts said the crisis showed how hard it is to secure public systems quickly. Officials warned that restoring services may take days or weeks and called for stronger monitoring.

TOKYO/BEIJING – Companies and governments worldwide rushed on Oct 22 to patch critical flaws in the widely used PHP programming language, as a cybersecurity company reported millions of hacking attempts after the vulnerabilities were disclosed.

The push came after governments in Europe and elsewhere took websites offline as a precaution on Oct 21 while website operators scrambled to secure systems running the software.

The emergency shutdowns of banking, airline, rail, tax and government services from Tokyo to Helsinki showed how much public and corporate systems rely on the software, and how hard it is to fix such flaws quickly once they are made public.

“It was a long day and a long night, I know for all the IT and security folks... I’ve not seen anything like this in a long, long time,” Microsoft chief executive officer Satya Nadella said at a company event in Cologne, Germany, on Oct 22.

He said the episode underscored the importance of building digital systems that can be maintained securely.

PHP developers released urgent fixes on Oct 21 for vulnerabilities that had lurked in the software for years until they were uncovered using AI, urging users to “update immediately”.

“Details of these flaws became public before fixes were ready, and attacks have since been reported,” said Madeline Lawrence, co-founder of Belgian cybersecurity firm Aikido Security.

“So, companies are racing to update against attackers who can use AI to exploit them. That’s the whole race.”

As companies and governments deployed patches and suspended websites as a precaution, hacking attempts surged into the millions, according to cloud services firm Cloudflare.

“In the 10 hours before it was publicly announced, across the network we saw thousands of attempts to exploit it,” Cloudflare CEO Matthew Prince said in a post on X late on Oct 21.

“That jumped to tens of thousands in the 45 minutes post announcement, hundreds of thousands within 2 hours, and millions now.”

Websites, services suspended from Japan to Finland

Japanese companies including brokerage Nomura, lender Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group and airline ANA. East Japan Railway said on Oct 22 it was temporarily suspending some internet services as part of emergency measures.

Insurer Tokio Marine Holdings said it had suspended the website of a group company.

Japan’s Ministry of Finance and Meteorological Agency partially suspended online services to implement safety measures, while Japan’s National Tax Agency temporarily took down its service.

The precautionary shutdowns underscore growing concerns over cybersecurity in Japan, which recorded more cyber incidents in the first nine months of 2026 than in all of 2025, according to data from TrendAI.

French telecoms group Orange said it had temporarily suspended access to certain PHP-based websites and applications across several subsidiaries as a precaution.

Tencent Cloud, one of China’s largest cloud-computing providers, urged customers to install updated PHP versions but stopped short of calling for widespread website shutdowns.

Finland’s state IT services provider Valtori said it had continued installing PHP security patches overnight and was gradually lifting precautionary service blocks after shutting down government public web services a day earlier.

“Restoring services can take days or even weeks, as in addition to updates, the systems need to be carefully tested,” Valtori director-general Hannu Naumanen said in a statement.

Valtori said the outages were not caused by exploitation of the vulnerabilities or by a cyber breach, and that it was not aware of any active exploitation of the flaws.

Several Asian governments ordered cybersecurity inspections related to the PHP vulnerabilities on Oct 22.

China’s industry ministry urged organisations and users to inspect systems immediately and upgrade to the latest secure version of PHP. It also recommended strengthening cybersecurity monitoring and changing accounts, passwords and keys where necessary.

South Korea raised its private-sector cybersecurity alert level and activated emergency response measures, citing concerns over an increased risk of hacking attacks. REUTERS