Nepal temporarily takes some government sites offline over PHP flaws as precautionPHP कमजोरीका कारण सावधानीस्वरूप नेपालका केही सरकारी वेबसाइट अस्थायी रूपमा बन्द

PHP is the programming language used to run most websites on the internet, and the shutdowns followed the discovery of two serious security flaws in it. In an urgent security notice, the centre said the flaws, rated 9.2 on the CVSS severity scale, could let attackers run code directly on a server without logging in and take control of the system.

Government emergency security work began on the evening of 21 October, Nepal time (21 October ET), after the vulnerabilities became public. The centre said it formed an emergency team with other technical centres and government representatives, which decided to take government systems offline.

It said the shutdowns coincided with the Dashain holidays and had not affected government work, with its technical teams working through the holiday to control the risk and update systems.

The centre said closed websites and services would be brought back in phases once security patches, testing and verification are complete. It apologised to service users for the inconvenience caused by the sudden disruption.