The websites of La Poste and Banque Postale were again difficult to access on Thursday morning due to a cyber attack, according to a message on the site. The disruption comes just a few days after a similar attack that disrupted parcel tracking during the Christmas period.
"The laposte.fr website and all of La Poste's information systems are currently facing a cyber attack," a message on the postal service's homepage stated on Thursday.
The website and app of La Banque Postale, the post office's banking arm, were also largely inaccessible.
The previous denial-of-service attack, which involves overloading servers to prevent or slow down access to an online service, was claimed by a pro-Russian hacker group NoName057(16).
Its duration was unusually long for this type of attack: it began on 22 December, and disruptions continued until 26 December. It severely disrupted customer tracking of parcels, but delivery proceeded normally.
La Poste filed a complaint and asserted that no data had been stolen, as a denial-of-service attack is not considered an intrusion into information systems.
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Pro-Russian hacktivists
The Paris prosecutor's office has opened an investigation, which has been entrusted to the General Directorate for Internal Security (DGSI) and the national cyber unit. It confirmed that NoName057(16) had claimed responsibility for the attack.
The hacker group emerged in 2022, the year that Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine.
It has previously targeted Ukrainian media websites and government and corporate websites in countries including Poland, Sweden and Germany.
Experts say that its activities appear to be designed to support pro-Russian information warfare. They say the group appears to be a loose organisation of hacktivists.
When contacted by French news agency AFP, La Poste was not immediately available for comment.
(with AFP)
