The Bar Association of Sri Lanka (BASL) has expressed serious concern over the recently gazetted the Protection of the State from Terrorism Bill (“PSTB”) and followed by the Prevention of Organised Crimes Bill (“OCB”).
Pointing out that both Bills have since been placed on the Order Paper of Parliament, the BASL has said both Bills have been presented as legislative reforms, individually and collectively, and they would confer extraordinary powers of arrest, detention and surveillance upon the Executive, curtail judicial oversight at the very stages when the protection of individual liberty is most critical, and create criminal liability with far-reaching implications for freedom of association, expression and movement.
The BASL has opposed the enactment of both Bills in their present form. For full statement please access island.lk 👇
Acting on a Defence Ministry directive, the military has handed over 6.97 acres of land at Keppapilavu, Mullaitivu District, to Divisional Secretary of Maritimepattu.
The Defence Ministry said that the handover was in line with the government’s policy of releasing lands used by security forces, except those required for essential national security purposes, and returning them to their rightful owners and for public use.
News
CERT alert to restrict Internet access to critical, high-risk systems that cannot be updated
Published
2 mins ago
on
2026/10/23
Sri Lanka CERT has requested public and private sector organisations, as well as website developers, to pay attention to security vulnerabilities identified in relation to the PHP software commonly used for developing websites and web applications.
The text of CERT statement issued yesterday: “Due to the security vulnerabilities referenced by the identification codes CVE-2026-109618 and CVE-2026-109619, there is a severe risk of unauthorised system access, data theft, and disruption of functionality.
Under such circumstances, Sri Lanka CERT urges the relevant parties to promptly take the following measures to minimise the risk.
= Identify all systems and web applications using PHP and verify their running versions.
= Immediately update systems and web applications in accordance with proper procedures using the software patches released for these security flaws. For this purpose, update instructions provided on the official PHP website (https://www.php.net) must be followed.
= Check system logs to monitor for any unusual activity.
= Restrict internet access to critical, high-risk systems that cannot be updated.”