Some important Dutch websites still offline after PHP issues

Most websites that went offline on Wednesday due to issues with the PHP programming language were back online by Thursday morning, following a security update. A few significant sites remain accessible, including that of the public health institute RIVM, the police’s anonymous tip line Meld Misdaad Anoniem, and the websites of several local branches of Veilig Thuis, the domestic violence help center, NU.nl reported.

The suicide prevention hotline 113 Zelfmoordpreventie’s website was offline for an extended period, though it remained accessible by phone. The site was back online on Thursday morning. The same applied to the Center for Sexual Violence.

The issues on Wednesday were caused by the discovery of vulnerabilities in PHP - the programming language on which around 70 percent of all websites are built. The vulnerabilities could have allowed malicious actors to gain control over the underlying servers.

Numerous websites worldwide were taken offline on Wednesday as a precautionary measure. In the Netherlands, these included government sites like MijnOverheid, DigiD, and the Tweede Kamer website. Several political parties took their websites down. NL Times also went dark for several hours.

A security patch was released at around 3:45 p.m., after which websites steadily became accessible again.

On Wednesday evening, Matthijs van Amelsfort of the National Cyber Security Center (NCSC) said on the talk show Pauw & De Wit that there had been no “active exploitation” of the vulnerabilities in the Netherlands. He did note an increase in online traffic, suggesting that individuals were searching for vulnerabilities in various websites.