{
  "id": 16082640,
  "title": "Kantone, Spitäler, KMU: In der Schweiz waren Tausende Websites von der gefährlichen Sicherheitslücke betroffen",
  "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/10/22/kantone-spitaler-kmu-in-der-schweiz-waren-tausende-websites-von-der",
  "topic": "business",
  "section": "Business",
  "published": "2026-10-22T17:48:52.000Z",
  "source": {
    "name": "NZZ Wirtschaft",
    "slug": "nzz-wirtschaft",
    "url": "https://www.nzz.ch/wirtschaft/php-sicherheitsluecke-legt-schweizer-websites-lahm-ld.10041701"
  },
  "original_language": "de",
  "account": "In Switzerland, thousands of websites were affected by a dangerous security vulnerability in the widely-used programming language PHP, resulting in many being taken offline temporarily to prevent hacking attempts. The extent of the damage is still unclear. Some examples include the website of the University Hospital Zurich, which suddenly went offline; the community website of Neuenburg canton, inaccessible to residents; and a small company unable to access its payroll system. The vulnerability affected numerous websites and software solutions for businesses, with small and medium-sized enterprises (KMU) particularly impacted. Many of them purchase software solutions, such as accounting, expense management, or time tracking, from external service providers. One such provider, Bexio, which was acquired by insurance company Mobiliar in 2018, experienced hours of downtime for its software due to the vulnerability. Bexio failed to inform its clients about the issue, according to a Swiss SME that uses multiple Bexio solutions. The company only mentioned the security issue on its own website, its business manager said. Bexio did not respond to NZZ's inquiries initially. The vulnerability, present in PHP, a common programming language, severely affected Switzerland, with thousands of websites and software solutions for businesses temporarily unavailable. Websites were intended to protect against hacking attempts until the security flaw was patched through updates. KMUs were especially affected, as they often lack the resources to maintain their own systems for payroll or invoice processing. Despite the concerns over their dependence on external services, the managers acknowledged the benefits. In addition to SMEs, numerous websites and systems belonging to cantonal administrations and hospitals had to be taken offline due to the security flaw. The canton of Basel-Stadt convened an emergency team and immediately took websites offline, while the canton of Freiburg mobilized over 30 IT employees to identify and remediate the vulnerable systems. The situation was under control by then, the canton reported. The PHP programming language is used to create websites, ranging from simple blogs to complex systems like WordPress. Approximately 70% of websites worldwide are built with PHP. The Federal Office for Cybersecurity (Bacs) had warned about two critical vulnerabilities in PHP two days prior. It could not precisely determine how many websites of Swiss authorities and companies were affected. Cyon, a Swiss company hosting websites for associations, SMEs, or corporations, took over 100,000 websites offline. The security flaw is critical as it provides an entry point for hackers to access website code without authorization, potentially gaining access to sensitive data. Cloudflare, an internet company, registered millions of hacking attempts, according to its CEO on X. The vulnerabilities can be fixed with PHP security updates, and affected systems should be updated as soon as possible, or temporarily taken offline if immediate updates are not feasible. Most cantonal and hospital systems were updated and restored to operation after most websites were. Some websites and internally used software of authorities remain offline, however. The Federal Office for Cybersecurity was unaware of any attacks attributed to the PHP security flaw until early Thursday evening, though it is possible that incidents were not yet detected or reported. Uncautious communication, ignoring a mandatory wait period, and AI-armed hackers combined to cause a cybersecurity disaster. Researchers used AI to discover a serious PHP security flaw, leading to a widespread IT crisis.",
  "summary": "Um einen Hackerangriff zu verhindern, haben Behörden, Universitäten und Firmen ihre Websites vorübergehend vom Netz genommen. Die Schadensbilanz ist noch unklar.",
  "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."
}