Websites taken down worldwide as critical cyber-security update issued

International governments and agencies have urged websites to address two critical cyber-security flaws in a programming language which powers much of the internet.

The vulnerabilities were found within the PHP programming language, with a fix issued on Wednesday afternoon.

Multiple cyber-security agencies have urged organisations unable to apply fixes in time to consider taking their sites down, leaving bodies such as the Finnish government, Edinburgh council and the BBC to take pages offline.