Flaw in PHP computer language leads to shutdown of websites around world

Websites around the globe have gone dark after a serious vulnerability was found in a computer language used to build much of the world wide web.

Belgian, Dutch, Finnish, French and German sites were among those that governments took down temporarily as they scrambled to patch the critical weakness in PHP, a language used by almost 70% of websites.

The vulnerability in the programming language, which became public on Tuesday, sparked warnings from national security agencies in Washington and London. It means millions of websites will need to be fixed. One internet infrastructure expert said Russian state actors or organised criminals could exploit the flaw to carry out cyber-attacks.