Andalucia’s health and employment services have disabled their websites following an international cybersecurity alert.

The Servicio Andaluz de Salud (SAS) took its website offline as a precaution after the National Cryptologic Centre issued a warning about two critical vulnerabilities affecting PHP, a programming language widely used to run websites.

The health service said potentially vulnerable online services were being temporarily disabled until the necessary security updates could be installed.

It stressed that medical care, clinical activity and emergency services remained unaffected and were operating normally.

The shutdown was described as a preventive measure, rather than a response to a confirmed cyberattack.

Andalucia’s employment service, the SAE, also announced on Thursday that it had temporarily suspended access to its website and other corporate pages in response to the warning.

The disruption has prompted trade union UGT Andalucia to demand extensions to deadlines affecting health service recruitment, staff transfers and temporary employment lists.

It wants deadlines extended by the same number of days that the SAS website remains unavailable, warning that time limits for challenging published lists continue to run.

The union also urged the regional government to provide alternative ways for those affected to complete their paperwork.

The supplied statements did not give a date for either website to return to normal service.

Read more Andalucia news at the Spanish Eye.