Orange denies PHP link following outage and doubles data for affected customers

French telecoms giant Orange is offering customers double their mobile data allowance following Wednesday’s nearly 10-hour nationwide outage, while separately taking services offline over newly disclosed PHP security vulnerabilities.

The operator confirmed that affected subscribers would receive twice their usual data allowance for one month, beginning with their next plan renewal.

That means customers on a 100GB plan would receive 200GB although the gesture may offer little consolation to subscribers who rarely exhaust their allowances.

Given the amount of hours businesses and customers were left without access to essential services, a reduction in their monthly bill might prove more welcome.

The disruption began around 11.20am on October 21, with services gradually recovering from 7 p.m. Orange said connectivity was restored fully by 9 p.m.

Orange told Les Numériques and 01.Net that the incident was caused by equipment in its new mobile core network, affecting subscribers across France.

"This technical incident occurred on equipment in our new core network, impacting some of our subscribers in the country," a spokesperson told 01.Net.

Speculation had suggested that a migration to Oranges’ new 5G core might have gone wrong, potentially leaving customers unable to connect either to the old or new infrastructure..

“It's not a hacking incident, I'm told internally!”

@_SaxX_ – an ethical hacker – posted on X.

“Orange is introducing a new mobile network core (5G). The lines that are migrated onto it are apparently down.”

However, Orange has not confirmed such a migration.

Orange denies PHP caused outage, issues separate warning

The operator also ruled out a cyberattack or connection to the PHP vulnerability, which saw many organisations worldwide have to take services offline yesterday for emergency patching.

In a separate statement issued on Thursday, however, Orange revealed it had temporarily suspended access to certain websites, applications and services following the disclosure of multiple PHP security flaws on Tuesday.

Orange said its cybersecurity teams were deploying patches and progressively restoring affected services across several subsidiaries.

The timing adds another twist to an already turbulent week in France and for Orange, whose mobile outage coincided with political calls for social media restrictions amid riots in France.

Cybernews has approached Orange for further comment.