Ongoing since 03:22 PM UTC, affecting Major Incident and Major Incident (Major Incident) and 1 more.
Learning systems have been restored after our preventative action to take them offline following warnings from the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) about a worldwide critical security issue (https://www.ncsc.gov.uk/news/critical-security-issue-affecting-php) issued to UK organisations such as ourselves. Our staff are working hard to restore systems and the following are now operational: 1. Module websites, which also includes access to online tutorials. 2. OpenLearn and OpenLearn Create. Our staff are continuing to work throughout the night to restore systems and we will provide another update by 08:00 tomorrow (Thursday 22 October 2026). We apologise for any inconvenience caused but we must act decisively in these situations to protect students, staff and OU systems.
Other major vendors with incidents starting within 30 minutes
Affected components
Update timeline
- identified Oct 21, 2026, 03:22 PM UTC
Unfortunately our Learning Systems are unavailable at this time. We sincerely apologise for the inconvenience of this unplanned downtime. We will look to restore access as soon as practically possible. For the latest information on when the systems will be available, please visit the System Status page. For any other information visit StudentHome or TutorHome.
- monitoring Oct 21, 2026, 07:37 PM UTC
Learning systems have been restored after our preventative action to take them offline following warnings from the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) about a worldwide critical security issue (https://www.ncsc.gov.uk/news/critical-security-issue-affecting-php) issued to UK organisations such as ourselves. Our staff are working hard to restore systems and the following are now operational: 1. Module websites, which also includes access to online tutorials. 2. OpenLearn and OpenLearn Create. Our staff are continuing to work throughout the night to restore systems and we will provide another update by 08:00 tomorrow (Thursday 22 October 2026). We apologise for any inconvenience caused but we must act decisively in these situations to protect students, staff and OU systems.
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