Duisburg institutions take websites offline due to security vulnerability

Numerous public institutions and authorities in Duisburg, Germany, including the city administration, local hospitals, the municipal utility company (Stadtwerke), and the university, took their websites offline on a Wednesday afternoon.

The decision follows the discovery of a serious security vulnerability in PHP, a widely used programming language that serves as the foundation for a large portion of the internet. Security experts responsible for the city's websites determined that the risk of hacker attacks was too significant to ignore.

In a statement, officials noted that the shutdown was a precautionary measure taken in consultation with the Federal Office for Information Security (BSI) to ensure the safety of systems and user data. The full extent of the impact on municipal services remains unclear.