Bangladesh Bank temporarily took its main website (bb.org.bd) offline on Thursday evening, October 22, with visitors seeing a message stating that the service was under maintenance.
The central bank’s website displayed the notice, “Our service is currently undergoing scheduled maintenance. We will be back online shortly. Thank you for your patience. Bangladesh Bank.”
The website said the service had been temporarily suspended for scheduled maintenance and would be restored shortly.
The website is believed to have been taken offline as a precaution amid global concerns over cyberattacks. Bangladesh Bank authorities had not issued any statement on the matter.
Two critical security vulnerabilities have recently been identified in PHP, a programming language widely used to develop and operate websites. Cyberattackers could exploit the flaws to remotely execute malicious code on servers without user authentication.
Reports said that government agencies and commercial organisations worldwide had temporarily taken websites offline to reduce the risk of cyberattacks.
In Bangladesh, BGD e-GOV CIRT, the government body responsible for cybersecurity matters, issued an alert over the risk. The agency advised relevant organisations to first prepare an inventory of where PHP is being used on their servers.
The organisations were also advised to check whether the PHP versions in use were vulnerable because of the identified flaws.
A BGD e-GOV CIRT notice issued on Thursday referred to the two security vulnerabilities. The notice said attackers could exploit the flaws to remotely execute code on vulnerable servers, potentially enabling them to take control of servers, steal information or disrupt website operations.