France’s national postal and banking services were disrupted on Monday after a suspected distributed denial-of-service attack took key digital systems offline, according to statements from La Poste and its banking arm.
Major Network Incident Disrupts Digital Services
La Poste said it was dealing with what it described as a “major network incident” affecting all of its information systems. As a result, several online services were temporarily unavailable, including its website, mobile app, online mail tools, and digital banking platforms.
The company said customers were still able to complete postal and banking transactions in person at physical branches while digital access remained disrupted.
Banking Services Also Impacted
La Banque Postale, the banking subsidiary of La Poste, issued a separate notice confirming that the incident was preventing customers from accessing its mobile app and online banking services.
The bank said the outage was temporary but did not provide a timeline for restoration or further technical details about the cause.
Attribution Remains Unclear
While a Russian hacktivist group has claimed responsibility for the disruption, French authorities have not confirmed who carried out the attack. No evidence has been publicly presented to substantiate the claim.
La Poste did not directly attribute the incident to a specific actor, referring instead to a network-level disruption consistent with a DDoS-style attack.
Part Of A Broader Wave Of Cyber Incidents
The outage comes amid a series of recent cybersecurity incidents affecting French institutions. In recent weeks, authorities reported the discovery of remote control software planted on a passenger ferry, raising concerns about potential cyber interference in transport infrastructure.
Last week, the French Interior Ministry disclosed a separate data breach in which attackers accessed internal email accounts and stole confidential documents, including criminal records. Shortly after that disclosure, officials announced the arrest of a 22-year-old suspect in connection with the breach. The individual’s name was not released.
Service Status And Ongoing Response
As of Monday, La Poste said work was ongoing to restore affected systems. The company has not indicated whether customer data was compromised during the incident, and no ransom demands have been reported.
Authorities have not commented on whether the incident is being investigated as part of a broader national security inquiry.
Featured image credits: Pixahive
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