North Korean websites stay down as PHP flaw causes global alarm

North Korea's government and state media websites have now been unreachable for 24 hours after a major PHP bug was revealed, one that exposed 70% of the world's websites to attackers.

The scripting language behind those pages, PHP, turned out to have a critical flaw that could give hackers the ability to execute code remotely.

The finding triggered worldwide alarm, and governments and businesses across the globe took their sites offline as they work on fixes.

Among the countries that have carried out such shutdowns are the Netherlands, France, Finland, Denmark, Germany, Belgium, Australia and North Korea.

Internet analysts NetBlocks also detected an “ongoing disruption” to North Korea's internet during the panic, and said international users cannot access the country's .kp domain.

Confirmed: Network data show an ongoing disruption to North Korea's already limited internet connectivity. The incident corresponds with the loss of international access to websites under the country's .kp domain.

— NetBlocks (@netblocks) October 21, 2026

PHP incident draws surge in exploit attempts

Cloudflare co-founder Matthew Prince said that in the 10 hours before the bug was made public, his company saw “thousands of attempts to exploit it.”

He cautioned: “That jumped to tens of thousands in the 45 minutes post announcement, hundreds of thousands within two hours, and millions now.”

Binance bolsters security against PHP flaw

Binance, the largest cryptocurrency exchange in the world, said it has put protections in place ahead of an official patch that will address the ongoing PHP security vulnerability.

Changpeng Zhao, a co-founder, told users to stay “extra careful” when visiting websites, saying “some web admins are not always up-to-date with security patches.”

Nina Rong, who is Executive Director of Growth for Binance's BNB Chain, said BNB Chain “does not use PHP in our tech stack.”

BNB Chain’s tech stack does not use PHP. Our network and core infrastructure are unaffected by the PHP2Shell vulnerabilities. We remind the community to be extra vigilant and stay SAFU at all times.

— BNB Chain (@BNBCHAIN) October 22, 2026

Crypto exchange MEXC and crypto wallet Trust Wallet likewise say they have not been affected by the vulnerability because neither company relies on PHP infrastructure.

MEXC added that outside firms it works with that do use PHP “have completed the necessary fixes.”