La Poste partly paralyzed two days before Christmas

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Two days before New Year’s Eve, a breakdown could well delay the last deliveries before Christmas. Victim of a cyberattack early this morning, Monday December 22, the La Poste website is inaccessible. As a result, in offices throughout France, it is difficult for agents to correctly monitor and deliver packages. Near Paris, users have paid the price.

“A nice package for Christmas, I couldn’t get it back. They are unable to find it since there is a computer problem”deplores a customer. “I’ve been waiting in line at the Post Office for over an hour. To post a Colissimo and two tracked letters”testifies another. The problem is the computer reading of the mail, explains this agent. “They can’t scan, even manually. So we’re waiting until tomorrow, if it’s possible or not”he explains.

This outage affects several entities of the group, Digipost and also Banque Postale. Therefore, no access to online banking and the mobile application, but cash withdrawal and payment by bank card in store work well. When contacted, La Poste spoke of a “denial of service” type incident. In short, a computer attack which consists of multiplying the sending of requests to saturate the server and paralyze the system.

So why such an attack? According to this expert, through La Poste, it would be France that would be targeted. “La Poste is a parastatal organization, an organization that represents France, a public service. So it’s a good way to claim and display your dissatisfaction with France”underlines Benoît Grunemwald, cybersecurity specialist – ESET France.

This Monday evening, the group ensures that no sensitive data has been stolen. Access to the La Poste online site remains partially disrupted.