Internet Archive and Wikipedia hit by outages on Wednesday

Two of the web's most useful reference sites, Wikipedia and the Internet Archive, went down for many users on Wednesday morning. By about 2 p.m. ET, both appeared to be back online. Wikimedia says the trouble is tied to newly found security flaws in PHP, a programming language behind many websites.

What we know

Down Detector, a site that tracks outage reports, showed problems starting around 10 or 11 a.m. ET. The Internet Archive, home of the Wayback Machine, showed a connection timeout error. The Wayback Machine lets people see old versions of web pages. The Internet Archive confirmed the problem in a post on X.

The Wikimedia Foundation, which runs Wikipedia, said it is fixing security flaws in PHP, which underpins most wikis. A spokesperson said the issue affects all known versions of PHP and is not specific to Wikimedia. Some systems were taken down as a precaution until they can be safely patched.

By 2 p.m. ET, Down Detector reports for both sites were near zero. Wikipedia's status page still listed the issue as unresolved.

What is not known

It is unclear whether the two outages are connected. The Internet Archive had not commented on the cause when Mashable published its report.

What to do

If a site you rely on is down, it may be a precaution, so check back later. Business owners who run PHP-based sites should watch for security updates and install them when they arrive.