Kathmandu, Oct. 23 -- Nepal's government has temporarily taken its systems offline to address two critical security flaws in PHP, a programming language used by nearly 70 percent of websites whose underlying technology can be identified.

The government began emergency security work on the evening of October 21 after the vulnerabilities became public. Some systems have since been patched and brought back , according to the government's Software Development and Operation Centre.

In a notice issued on Thursday, the centre, which operates under the Office of the Prime Minister and Council of Ministers, said it had formed an emergency team with other technical centres and government representatives to secure affected systems. The team decide...