Most vehicle inspection stations in Massachusetts begin issuing stickers again on Saturday, more than two weeks after the system went down due to a malware attack, officials said Friday.
Some inspection stations have ‘more complex technological issues’ to resolve, but most will be able to resume their inspections at 07:00, the motor vehicle register said in a statement.
Applus Technologies, the provider of inspection systems for Massachusetts and seven other states, experienced a malware attack on March 30, according to the RMV.
According to the state’s contract with Applus, the seller must compensate station owners for each lost day, according to the statement.
“The Commonwealth fully expects Applus to compensate the owners of the inspection stations for the prolonged interruptions, as well as additional compensation to the stations that cannot start conducting inspections on Saturday, April 17,” the RMV said. “Applus accepts full responsibility for repairing systems as soon as possible.”
Applus said it would consider financial compensation to gas stations. The company did not immediately respond to a query Friday night, and an information sheet about the outage on its website was not updated.
Last week, Applus sent a software solution to service stations that was expected to resolve the malware attack, but was unsuccessful.
The attack delayed thousands of vehicle inspections, and the cars left dilapidated stickers behind and deprived the revenue.
The registry announced on Tuesday that the grace period for drivers with inspection stickers that expired last month or that will be renewed in April will be extended until the end of May.
Newly purchased cars registered on March 23 or later have until April 30 to receive inspection, which extends the normal deadline of seven days after registration.
Governor Charlie Baker took the situation into account on Monday and told reporters during an unrelated COVID-19 briefing that the inspection deadlines ‘need to be resolved’.
“As far as our knowledge goes, and we’ve spent a lot of time on this, nobody’s information has ended up anywhere in the public domain, and I think that’s really important,” Baker said.
Baker also talked about the revenue lost gas stations and car shops.
“We fully expect the entrepreneur to find a way to compensate many people at the level of retailers and service stations who have been terribly inconvenienced by this,” Baker said.
Jeremy C. Fox can be reached at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @jeremycfox.