Developers of the PHP programming language have released security updates to fix two critical vulnerabilities, urging users to update immediately as website operators work to protect their systems.

Government websites in Europe and elsewhere went offline on Wednesday following the disclosure of the vulnerabilities which reported that website operators were scrambling to secure their systems, Reuters reported.

PHP underpins large parts of the internet, raising concerns that websites and other services relying on the widely used programming language could be vulnerable to attack.