Two critical vulnerabilities have been discovered in PHP, the programming language used by roughly 70% of websites. The flaws could allow unauthenticated remote attackers to execute malicious code. Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi urged website operators on X to apply the security patches as quickly as possible, prompting numerous websites and online services across Japan to temporarily shut down.
Amid the disruption, users wondered whether the famously lightning-fast official website of Hiroshi Abe would survive. Unfortunately, even this internet landmark went down under the PHP emergency, quickly becoming a talking point across Japanese social media.
For the uninitiated, this is simply the official website of actor Hiroshi Abe. At first glance, there is nothing remarkable about it. Its claim to fame is a bare-bones design seemingly frozen in the 1990s, with a clean layout and virtually no unnecessary visual effects.
That means the site loads almost instantly, even on a terrible connection, an ancient computer, or a feature phone. Its speed has made it a running joke—and a surprisingly useful benchmark—for testing internet connections. After @nifty fully introduced HTTPS encryption to its web-hosting service last October, the site was upgraded to HTTPS without losing its reputation as Japan’s fastest webpage.
As the PHP emergency unfolded and users began checking which websites had entered maintenance, one person posted:
"If even the final fortress, Hiroshi Abe’s personal website, gets hacked, humanity may be about to witness the internet’s defeat."
At 1 a.m. on the 22nd, however, the user checked the site again and found that it had been replaced by @nifty’s official maintenance page. With a resigned laugh, they declared that even the internet’s final fortress had been forced into maintenance by the PHP vulnerabilities.
The reaction shows just how special Hiroshi Abe’s retro homepage has become to internet users in Japan. Jokes aside, the PHP vulnerabilities have forced a significant number of websites across the country offline for emergency maintenance, and it may take some time before every affected service is fully restored.
