Cyberattack Disrupts France's Postal Service, Banking During Christmas Rush (apnews.com)
(Monday December 22, 2025 @10:30PM (BeauHD)
from the unfortunate-timing dept.)
- Reference: 0180441001
- News link: https://it.slashdot.org/story/25/12/22/2158219/cyberattack-disrupts-frances-postal-service-banking-during-christmas-rush
- Source link: https://apnews.com/article/france-postal-service-cyberattack-4ea0c3e3bcb8a87341de8aebc1dfc916
An anonymous reader quotes a report from the Associated Press:
> With just three days to go before Christmas, a cyberattack [1]knocked France's national postal service offline Monday , blocking and delaying package deliveries and online payments. The timing was miserable for millions of people at the height of the Christmas season, as frazzled postal workers fended off frustrated customers. No one immediately claimed responsibility, but suspicions abounded.
>
> What the postal service La Poste called a ''major network incident'' remained unresolved by Monday evening, more than eight hours after it was first reported. For a company that delivered 2.6 billion packages last year and employs more than 200,000 people, that's a big hit. La Poste said in a statement that a distributed denial of service incident, or DDoS, "rendered its online services inaccessible." It said the incident had no impact on customer data, but disrupted package delivery. Letters, including holiday greeting cards, could still be mailed and delivered. But transactions requiring tracking or access to the postal service internal computer systems were impossible.
>
> The cyberattack also hurt online banking. Customers of the company's banking arm, La Banque Postale, were blocked from using the application to approve payments or conduct other banking services. The bank redirected approvals to text messages instead. "Our teams are mobilized to resolve the situation quickly," the bank said in messages posted on social networks. The disruption came a week after France's government was targeted by a cyberattack that targeted the Interior Ministry, in charge of national security.
[1] https://apnews.com/article/france-postal-service-cyberattack-4ea0c3e3bcb8a87341de8aebc1dfc916
> With just three days to go before Christmas, a cyberattack [1]knocked France's national postal service offline Monday , blocking and delaying package deliveries and online payments. The timing was miserable for millions of people at the height of the Christmas season, as frazzled postal workers fended off frustrated customers. No one immediately claimed responsibility, but suspicions abounded.
>
> What the postal service La Poste called a ''major network incident'' remained unresolved by Monday evening, more than eight hours after it was first reported. For a company that delivered 2.6 billion packages last year and employs more than 200,000 people, that's a big hit. La Poste said in a statement that a distributed denial of service incident, or DDoS, "rendered its online services inaccessible." It said the incident had no impact on customer data, but disrupted package delivery. Letters, including holiday greeting cards, could still be mailed and delivered. But transactions requiring tracking or access to the postal service internal computer systems were impossible.
>
> The cyberattack also hurt online banking. Customers of the company's banking arm, La Banque Postale, were blocked from using the application to approve payments or conduct other banking services. The bank redirected approvals to text messages instead. "Our teams are mobilized to resolve the situation quickly," the bank said in messages posted on social networks. The disruption came a week after France's government was targeted by a cyberattack that targeted the Interior Ministry, in charge of national security.
[1] https://apnews.com/article/france-postal-service-cyberattack-4ea0c3e3bcb8a87341de8aebc1dfc916
a cyberattack that targeted the Interior Ministry (Score:2)
by test321 ( 8891681 )
> The disruption came a week after France's government was targeted by a cyberattack that targeted the Interior Ministry, in charge of national security.
I summarise this second case for you: 22 y.o. Melvin L. from Saint-Sulpice-Laurière (800 inhabitants) who lived with his mother after interrupting his secondary studies during the COVID pandemic. Was previously judged from swatting, SIM swapping (in which several victims lost some thousands of euros). Melvin managed to get passwords to access "Pablo" and "Icasso", two portals used by police services. Using this access, he obtained codes that ultimately granted him access to police databases, where he c
Not such critical for Christmast (Score:2)
That is annoying, but as far as Christmast is concerned, careful people did their shopping weeks ago.