Sicherheitslücke: „Millionen“ Hacker-Versuche: Viele Webseiten noch offline
Krankenhäuser, Behörden und Universitäten haben Webseiten vorsorglich vom Netz genommen. In vielen Bundesländern sind erste Angebote zurück – doch längst nicht alle. Was steckt dahinter?
A global security flaw has continued to cause alarm worldwide, with numerous websites, including those in Germany, still affected on Thursday. Cloudflare CEO Matthew Prince told Sky News that hackers had attempted to exploit the vulnerability "millions" of times globally. The problem stems from a critical security flaw in the widely used programming language PHP, which forms the basis of much of the internet, from simple blogs to large news portals, online shops, and content management systems like WordPress.
The Federal Office for Information Security (BSI) issued an official cyber security warning, urging prompt installation of security updates. Several federal states, municipalities, authorities, universities, and hospitals temporarily took their websites offline. IT security expert Christoph Fischer warned that systems without updates should not remain online.
"Every unprotected PHP application is an open door for criminals at this moment." In some regions, websites were back online by morning, such as many in Rhineland-Palatinate and the Saarland, and in Thuringia, including the State Chancellery, State Police, and Interior Ministry. Baden-Württemberg indicated maintenance work. The state ministry stated the measure was to protect the infrastructure while developers provided necessary security updates.
In North Rhine-Westphalia, some prominent websites remained inaccessible in the morning. Several NRW police online services were back online after intensive work. The BSI warned of a new dimension in cyber threats, calling it "a turning point" where artificial intelligence could turn previously hard-to-exploit vulnerabilities into "real doors."
The vulnerability affected a large portion of websites worldwide and posed a threat to the entire digital infrastructure. It highlighted the vulnerability of state institutions if central software contained undiscovered errors for years. The case demonstrated how easily governments could be exploited by criminals and state actors.
Written by urgent.news from Handelsblatt's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
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