{
  "id": 16043425,
  "title": "UK orders dozens of official websites offline after flaw warnings",
  "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/10/22/uk-orders-dozens-of-official-websites-offline-after-flaw-warnings",
  "topic": "world",
  "section": "World",
  "published": "2026-10-22T12:13:46.000Z",
  "source": {
    "name": "The National UAE",
    "slug": "the-national-uae",
    "url": "https://www.thenationalnews.com/news/europe/2026/10/22/uk-orders-dozens-of-official-websites-offline-after-flaw-warnings/"
  },
  "original_language": "en",
  "account": "On Thursday, British government websites were taken offline amid warnings of critical security flaws in PHP, a programming language that powers much of the internet. Baroness Lloyd, a parliamentary under-secretary of state, explained the precautionary measures were taken to protect data while security updates were applied. The government pledged to keep monitoring the situation and collaborate with departments to maintain service security, resilience, and availability. Similar actions were taken by various organisations across Europe and beyond, including government websites in Germany, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Finland. The BBC, a UK public service broadcaster, also took down some web portals. Meanwhile, the Wikimedia Foundation and Internet Archive, among others, took down their online services as a precautionary measure.",
  "summary": "British government official sites were taken down on Thursday as administrators rushed to safeguard against two critical security flaws in PHP, a programming language that powers a large share of the internet. Baroness Lloyd, parliamentary under-secretary of state at the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, told the House of Lords that decision to protect data had been taken after…",
  "key_points": [],
  "editors_take": null,
  "illustration": null,
  "coverage": {
    "outlets": 1,
    "also_reported_by": []
  },
  "ai_generated": true,
  "disclaimer": "Summaries, key points and the editor’s take are written by software from other outlets’ reporting and may contain errors — always check the linked original."
}