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South African presidency website temporarily offline after PHP warning

By · Published by Everything Blog

In short

The South African presidency's website was briefly inaccessible after a PHP warning, leading to a security breach that has prompted widespread system updates and fixes.

Key points

  • The South African presidency's website was temporarily offline.: The South African presidency's website was temporarily offline.
  • A PHP warning led to the website's temporary shutdown.: A PHP warning led to the website's temporary shutdown.
  • This incident underscores the importance of cybersecurity measures.: This incident underscores the importance of cybersecurity measures.

Sources checked by our analysis pipeline: 1

JOHANNESBURG, Oct 23 : South Africa's presidency temporarily took its website offline following a PHP warning, presidential spokesperson Vincent Magwenya told Reuters on Friday, adding there was no indication of a security breach.

"While such warnings do not indicate a security breach, they can affect the normal operation of a website," Magwenya said.

He added that the website was taken down as a precaution.

Governments and businesses worldwide have rushed to secure systems running the PHP programming language after flaws were disclosed, forcing some services offline and triggering millions of hacking attempts in one of the most significant cybersecurity incidents in recent years.

PHP underpins a large share of the public web and is widely used by content management systems including WordPress, Drupal and Joomla, giving any critical vulnerability potentially widespread consequences.

PHP developers on Wednesday released fixes for the flaws and urged users to update affected systems immediately.

Original source: www.channelnewsasia.com

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