The Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency (DVSA) has restored full operation to the online MOT Testing Service (MTS) following a national outage that forced testing stations across the UK onto manual contingency procedures last week.

The disruption began on the afternoon of Wednesday, 21 October, leaving Authorised Examiners (AEs) and MOT testers unable to log onto the central digital database to initiate tests or record results. The incident carried through the night and into the morning of Thursday, 22 October.

According to the DVSA’s official service status logs, the technical issue was resolved ahead of schedule at 11:34 am on Thursday, beating an earlier estimated recovery target of 1:00 pm. The central platform is currently reporting fully operational status across all testing classes.

Contingency MOT testing invoked

During the outage, the agency issued an official daily contingency incident code, enabling testing stations to keep bays running using manual, paper-based contingency testing procedures.

Under DVSA Section N guidelines, contingency processes permit testers to carry out examinations and issue manual documentation, including contingency pass certificates and refusal notices, without live access to the MTS.

The agency reiterated, however, that contingency testing is strictly limited to verified, centrally logged technical failures and cannot be invoked for site-specific faults, such as localised broadband drops, terminal hardware failures, or workshop printer issues.

Testers operating under contingency rules are required to attempt a standard system registration before starting each vehicle test, and all tests conducted offline must be backfilled onto the MTS as soon as normal service resumes.

Coinciding cybersecurity alert

The platform disruption coincided with a widespread cybersecurity advisory published on 21 October by the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC).

The alert warned public and private sector organisations of critical vulnerabilities affecting PHP, an open-source programming language widely used across web applications and server infrastructure.

The NCSC advised organisations unable to immediately apply software patches to consider taking affected systems offline to prevent arbitrary code execution risks.

By Thursday, 22 October, central government confirmed that 32 public-facing digital services had been temporarily taken offline and four were partially disrupted while protective maintenance took place.

While the timing led to widespread speculation linking the MOT service downtime to the NCSC alert, the DVSA has not publicly confirmed the technical root cause of the fault on its service logs.

There is no evidence indicating that the MOT database was breached, hacked, or that vehicle or customer data was compromised during the downtime.

All testing stations are advised to ensure any outstanding manual test records completed during the 21–22 October disruption have now been logged into the MTS to ensure vehicle records remain up to date on national registers.