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France’s La Poste service continues to suffer after a major cyberattack hit its networks yesterday, although officials say the intensity of the situation has decreased. 

A major cyberattack hit La Poste’s digital services – including those for parcel tracking – yesterday. 

The attack also impacted La Poste’s banking services, with a number of other national banks also affected.

The prolonged issues have led to fears that those yet to receive Christmas parcels may miss out on the delivery, particularly as tracking services are unavailable leaving parcels essentially untraceable. 

The government has sought to assuage these fears, however.

“If you ordered a parcel for Christmas, you may not be able to check its status on the website right now, but the parcel itself is on its way,â€� said Finance Minister Roland Lescure to media outlet BFMTV on Tuesday (December 23). 

“The top priority is to ensure that parcels arrive in time for Christmas,� he added.

La Poste staff “are working flat out to achieve this, and they tell me that yes, they will [deliver parcels on time],â€� Mr Lescure said. 

For those anxiously awaiting deliveries however, the inability to track where the parcel is can be a cause of stress, as well as an inconvenience as they are unsure of the time they must be at home to collect parcels. 

It is worth noting that this disruption only applies to parcels sent through La Poste and its affiliates such as Colissimo.

International senders such as Royal Mail and private couriers including FedEx and DHL are not impacted by the issues.

No personal data compromised 

The wide-reaching cyberattack that began on Monday consisted of several DDoS (Distributed Denial of Service) attacks, which see systems overloaded with bogus requests causing them to slow down and eventually crash. 

This prevents legitimate users looking to access the system – in this case, banking apps, parcel tracking, etc – or from being able to log into accounts and personal spaces 

This form of attack can be effective, but does not steal user data unless certain areas are compromised (sometimes brute strength from attacks can be enough to overload password barriers and encryptions). 

Mr Lescure assured users this was not the case, however, and “no personal data had been taken,â€� as part of the cyberattack. 

This week is La Poste’s busiest, with an estimated 180 million parcels being sent in November and December.