Hungarian government portal magyarorszag.hu back online after emergency cyber fix
Science and Technology Minister Zoltán Tanács announced that the magyarorszag.hu website was restored at 15:15 following a temporary shutdown for security upgrades.
Hungarian Science and Technology Minister Zoltán Tanács confirmed that the magyarorszag.hu portal resumed operation at 15:15 after being suspended for two days to address a critical security flaw. The shutdown, which also affected other government websites, was triggered by the discovery of the PHP2Shell vulnerability that has existed in the PHP codebase for over a decade. International cyber-security experts have uncovered similar severe bugs in the language, prompting temporary closures of government and public-service sites in the Netherlands, Finland, Denmark and France, as well as disruptions to parts of Wikipedia and one outlet.
Tanács emphasized that no evidence of a cyber-attack was detected and that advanced artificial-intelligence tools enabled the rapid identification of the flaws. He warned that as AI advances, new cyber threats are likely to emerge, requiring substantial mitigation efforts.
Why it matters
The incident highlights how legacy software flaws can cripple government services worldwide and how AI is becoming crucial for cyber-security.
How this story developed
- Oct 12 Cyberattack disrupts refrigeration systems at Intermarché and Coopérative U stores
- Oct 12 The attack specifically exploits outdated Danfoss software versions older than version 4.
- Oct 14 Additional reports note that stores of Monoprix, Leclerc and Carrefour also experienced temperature overrides.
- Oct 21 PHP maintainers announced they will release emergency updates for two high-severity flaws, each rated 9.2/10, in just over a day.
- Oct 21 EU’s CERT‑EU recommended that organisations unable to patch consider taking vulnerable sites offline.
- Oct 21 AI tools identified two severe remote-code execution bugs in PHP, forcing governments and companies to pull or patch sites as a fix was rushed out.
- Oct 22 German state portals, including Berlin and Hessen, were restored after applying the emergency PHP patches.
- Oct 22 Emergency patches for PHP 8.x have been released as the vulnerability spreads.
- Oct 22 Additional governments—including Denmark, the United Kingdom, Hungary, France, the Netherlands and Finland—temporarily disabled public websites while applying the PHP patches.
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