Some government websites offline due to cyber threat risks

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The Canadian government temporarily shut down some of its websites as a precautionary measure this week after being advised its software was at risk of cyber threats.

Minister of Artificial Intelligence and Digital Innovation Evan Solomon said the decision was taken following guidance from the Canadian Centre for Cyber Security.

“This is in response to a vulnerability identified in PHP, software used by websites around the world,” the MP for Toronto Centre said on social media Wednesday. “This is a global issue, and other governments and organizations are also taking protective measures.”

Solomon said the government is taking this situation “extremely seriously” and that tech teams are working on patches before restoring the affected websites.

However, he did not identify which websites were offline or how long they would be out of service.

Critical vulnerabilities affecting PHP

The cyber security agency said in an alert to IT professionals and managers that it was aware of critical vulnerabilities affecting multiple versions of PHP, a website scripting language.

The agency said a “successful exploitation could allow an unauthenticated threat actor to execute arbitrary code on an affected system” and that internet-facing PHP servers and applications are at heightened risk. Security updates were released to address the vulnerabilities.

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“Organizations should identify affected systems and apply the appropriate updates immediately,” the government agency said, adding there is no active exploitation that has been identified but that could change quickly.

Solomon advised organizations using PHP to apply the latest security updates as soon as possible and to follow the Canadian Centre for Cyber Security for the latest updates.

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