The Election Commission (EC) has temporarily shut down the National Identity Card (NID) server amid fears of a potential cyberattack. The move came after a serious security vulnerability was identified in PHP, a widely used programming language for website development worldwide.

Officials from the EC’s NID Wing confirmed the matter on Wednesday (October 28).

Muhammad Ashraf Hossain, system manager of the NID Wing, said, “Our technical team is working on the issue. The server will be brought back online as soon as the work is completed.”

Meanwhile, Bangladesh Government’s Computer Incident Response Team (BGD e-GOV CIRT), the government agency responsible for cybersecurity incident response, has issued a warning to protect information systems and databases.

Last week, researchers from US cybersecurity firms KALYF and Wiz identified a serious security vulnerability in PHP dating back nearly a decade, with the help of artificial intelligence (AI).

On October 21, the US National Security Agency (NSA) issued an urgent alert following the discovery. Soon afterward, hundreds of websites worldwide, including Wikimedia, the UK government, France’s Orange and the Finnish government, temporarily suspended their services amid fears of potential hacking attacks.