Pro-Russian Hackers Disrupt French National Postal Service in Pre-Christmas Cyberattack

ERBIL (Kurdistan24) — France’s national postal service, La Poste, was hit by a major cyberattack just days before Christmas, disrupting package deliveries and online payments at one of the busiest times of the year, French prosecutors said Wednesday.

The Paris prosecutor’s office said a pro-Russian hacking group known as Noname057 claimed responsibility for the attack, prompting France’s domestic intelligence agency, DGSI, to take over the investigation.

The cyberattack took the company’s central computer systems offline on Monday through a distributed denial of service (DDoS) assault, a disruption that had not been fully resolved by Wednesday morning.

As a result, postal workers were unable to track parcels, while online payment services at La Poste’s banking arm were also affected. The incident delivered a significant operational blow to the state-owned company, which employs more than 200,000 people and delivered 2.6 billion packages last year, according to company data.

The hacking group behind the attack has previously been linked to cyber operations across Europe, including attacks timed around a NATO summit in the Netherlands and intrusions targeting French government websites.

Noname057 was also the subject of a major Europe-wide law enforcement operation earlier this year, highlighting growing concern over coordinated cyber threats attributed to pro-Russian actors.

French and European officials view the attack as part of a broader pattern of “hybrid warfare” allegedly waged by Russia and its affiliates since Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

According to those officials' view, this strategy blends conventional military pressure with cyberattacks, sabotage, disinformation campaigns, and covert operations aimed at weakening Western societies and eroding political support for Kyiv.

More than 145 incidents linked to this hybrid campaign have been recorded across Europe, including cyber intrusions, infrastructure sabotage, assassination plots, and influence operations, according to an Associated Press investigation.  

European security services say such attacks are increasingly straining police and intelligence resources, while targeting civilian infrastructure to maximize public disruption and psychological impact.

The timing of the assault on La Poste—during the peak holiday delivery season—has heightened concerns about the vulnerability of critical public services to cyber threats.

Analysts note that postal and logistics networks, which underpin both commerce and daily life, have become attractive targets for hostile actors seeking to amplify economic and social pressure without direct military confrontation.

As the investigation continues, French authorities have reiterated calls for stronger European cooperation on cybersecurity, warning that cyberattacks are now a central front in modern geopolitical conflict, particularly as the war in Ukraine is continuing with no clear vision of when and where it will stop.