Statistics Canada website down as internet hit by millions of hack attempts

Several government websites, including Statistics Canada, were still down Thursday morning at the same time a coding vulnerability seen worldwide has opened the door to millions of reported hack attempts. “We’re sorry! The website is currently unavailable. We apologize for any inconvenience,” a bulletin on Statistics Canada’s website said as of publication.That comes after other outages including the website for the Canadian Intellectual Property Office, which handles trademark and copyright information, was also taken offline on Wednesday.Artificial Intelligence Minister Evan Solomon said Wednesday in a social media post that websites went dark to protect government systems and Canadians’ information following guidance from the Canadian Centre for Cyber Security.He said it is being done in response to a vulnerability identified in PHP, a widely used programming language that underwrites roughly 70 per cent of the world’s websites. Story continues below advertisement “This is a global issue, and other governments and organizations are also taking protective measures,” he said.Some Government of Canada websites have been temporarily taken offline as a precaution to protect governmen...