Canada · 13 d ago
The original uploader was Demetri1968 at English Wikipedia. · CC BY-SA 3.0 · Wikimedia Commons
Statistics Canada's website stays down as a PHP flaw draws millions of hack attempts
Taken offline
- Statistics Canada
- Canadian Intellectual Property Office
- Some B.C. government pages
Several government websites, including Statistics Canada's, were still down Thursday morning. They were taken offline as a precaution on the advice of the Canadian Centre for Cyber Security.
Where the flaw is
PHP
The flaw is in PHP, a programming language behind roughly 70 per cent of the world's websites. The FBI says it could let attackers run code remotely and reach sensitive data.
“This is a global issue, and other governments and organizations are also taking protective measures.”
— Evan Solomon, Artificial Intelligence Minister
Hacking attempts went from thousands before the flaw was announced to millions after, according to the cloud firm Cloudflare. Governments in Europe also took sites offline.
What's next
PHP developers released urgent fixes on Wednesday and told users to update immediately. British Columbia says its teams are working to restore services as soon as possible.
