Day: October 22, 2026

Some Japanese ministries” webpages have been partially suspended as a preventive measure following the detection of vulnerabilities in the widely used PHP programming language, Japan”s top government spokesman said on October 22, Report informs via The Straits Times.

Chief Cabinet Secretary Minoru Kihara also told a press conference that no damage to government websites related to the PHP flaws has been reported.

Meanwhile, moves to address vulnerabilities found in the programming language continued on October 22, with MUFG Bank and JR West announcing that they were conducting extraordinary system maintenance.

The Japanese megabank said some of its services, including online opening of investment trust accounts, would be unavailable.

West Japan Railway Company said about 60 of its group websites were suspended.

Restaurant operator Zensho Holdings, meanwhile, said it had halted app services for its Sukiya beef bowl chain and Hama-sushi conveyor belt sushi restaurant chain as a preventive measure from the night of October 21.

The vulnerabilities, which were discovered with the assistance of artificial intelligence and alerted on October 21, prompted governments and companies around the world to temporarily shut down websites amid concern that the flaws could be exploited for cyberattacks.

According to a European research organisation, PHP, which is mainly designed for servers, is used by 69.3% of websites worldwide whose server-side programming language is known.

The developer had announced by the early hours of October 21 that it discovered two major vulnerabilities. Patches have been released to fix the vulnerabilities.