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A distributed-denial-of-service (DDoS) attack disrupted La Poste’s websites and digital services in France on December 22, 2025, affecting parcel tracking and La Banque Postale’s online banking during the final days before Christmas. It was a major digital outage—not a confirmed theft of customer data—and physical deliveries, ATMs, card payments and several alternative banking channels continued.
La Poste said it found no evidence of a customer-data breach. The company reported that services were substantially restored by December 26, although its later account described additional or continuing attack activity into early January.
What happened to La Poste and La Banque Postale?
The incident began on Monday, December 22, 2025, three days before Christmas. La Poste initially described it as a major network incident and later confirmed that it was a denial-of-service attack targeting internet-facing services.
The attack overwhelmed online systems with enormous volumes of connection attempts. That made websites and apps unavailable or unstable even though much of the underlying postal and banking infrastructure continued operating.
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The timing increased the practical impact. Customers were checking last-minute parcel deliveries, sending packages and making payments during one of the busiest periods of the year. La Poste’s digital services and La Banque Postale’s online channels also share infrastructure and customer-facing systems, so disruption to the online layer affected both postal and banking activity.
Initial reporting from the Associated Press and La Poste’s incident chronology described the main effects.
Which services were disrupted?
Customers reported difficulty accessing:
- laposte.fr and other La Poste online services;
- online parcel tracking;
- some digital postal and delivery-related services;
- La Poste’s mobile and online customer channels;
- La Banque Postale’s mobile app and online banking;
- payment approvals that required confirmation through the banking app; and
- some call-center services during the early disruption.
The banking impact needs careful description. La Banque Postale’s online and app-based services were impaired, but this did not mean that every banking transaction stopped or that the bank’s core ledger was compromised.
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A customer unable to approve a payment in the app could still encounter an app-related failure while being able to use an alternative authentication method or a different payment channel.
Did mail and parcel deliveries stop?
No. The attack disrupted systems supporting postal operations, particularly tracking and customer access, but it did not shut down France’s physical postal network.
La Poste said deliveries and collections continued, although operations were disrupted initially. By December 23, the company said delivery was continuing normally even as some online services remained unstable. On December 24, La Poste reported that it had delivered 5.5 million parcels since Monday morning, including 2 million parcels that day. Those figures are La Poste’s own reported totals.
This distinction matters: an unavailable tracking page does not necessarily mean that a parcel has stopped moving, been lost or missed its route. Tracking depends on customer-facing and scanning systems that can fail even while physical transport and delivery continue.
What could La Banque Postale customers still use?
According to La Poste, several fallback channels remained available during the disruption:
- cash withdrawals from ATMs;
- card payments at retail terminals;
- banking transactions at post offices;
- online payments using SMS authentication instead of app approval; and
- Wero transfers.
That meant customers could face difficulty accessing online banking or authorizing a particular transaction without being completely unable to access their money or pay for goods.
The practical lesson is to distinguish between an online access failure, a payment-authorization failure and a loss of access to funds. They are not the same event.
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Was customer data stolen?
La Poste said there was no impact on customer data and later said the attack did not result in an intrusion or data leak. The most precise public description is therefore: La Poste reported that it had found no evidence of a customer-data breach.
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That statement should not be expanded into an independently verified absolute claim that no information could possibly have been accessed. The available reporting supports a DDoS attack affecting availability, not a confirmed compromise of customer databases, payment-card information or bank records.
A DDoS attack can make a website or app inaccessible without giving attackers access to the systems behind it. The outage itself does not prove that:
- personal data was exfiltrated;
- account balances were altered;
- payment-card numbers were stolen;
- postal records were permanently lost; or
- customer devices were infected with malware.
La Poste’s security director discussed the company’s assessment in a January 2026 retrospective.
How large was the attack?
La Poste described the attack as unprecedented for the company. In its January 22 retrospective, the group said the attackers generated billions of connection attempts per second from millions of source IP addresses and that traffic reached as many as 3.5 billion data packets per second.
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La Poste also said the traffic came from compromised computers or connected devices and that attackers changed their methods in response to defensive measures.
These figures are La Poste’s reported measurements and assessment; they are not presented here as independently audited benchmarks. They nevertheless illustrate why a service can become unusable even when attackers are not stealing data or taking control of internal systems.
Recovery timeline
La Poste’s public updates show that different services recovered at different speeds:
| Date | Reported status |
|---|---|
| December 22 | Internet-facing services were inaccessible or heavily disrupted. Delivery and collection continued in a disrupted but functioning state. |
| December 23 | Online services were improving but remained unstable. Deliveries continued normally, while La Banque Postale’s online banking was available but could be slow. |
| December 24 | La Poste website access had substantially improved. Parcel tracking was still degraded, while online banking had returned to normal, according to the company. |
| December 26 | La Poste reported that all group services were available, including parcel tracking, delivery services, La Banque Postale’s online services and call centers. |
There is a chronology point that should not be overlooked. La Poste’s official incident page separately describes several billion connection attempts per second on January 1, while its December 26 update reported service availability. The later retrospective said the broader attack activity continued into early January.
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1Fix the driver behind crashes, sound loss and screen glitches2Repair Windows errors before they cause bigger problems3Scan for outdated or missing drivers - takes under a minutePublic information does not make clear whether the January 1 activity was a renewed attack, a separate wave or part of the same campaign after services had been restored. It is more accurate to say that the Christmas disruption was restored by December 26, while La Poste later reported additional or continuing activity into early January, rather than treating every date as one uninterrupted outage.
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Who was responsible?
There was no confirmed public attribution when the outage first occurred. A pro-Russian hacktivist group, Noname057(16), later claimed responsibility. French prosecutors referred the investigation to the country’s domestic intelligence service, the DGSI, according to the Associated Press.
A group’s claim is not the same as independently established attribution. The available reporting does not establish that the Russian government ordered or directed the attack. The responsible formulation is that a pro-Russian hacktivist group claimed responsibility and French authorities investigated that claim.
The incident also occurred shortly after a cyberattack affecting France’s Interior Ministry. That timing placed the La Poste outage within a broader period of concern about cyber and hybrid threats, but proximity does not prove that the incidents were connected.
Why the outage mattered even without a data breach
The incident demonstrated how dependent routine public services are on internet-facing systems. Postal delivery may be physical, but tracking, customer support, parcel intake, authentication and status updates rely on digital infrastructure.
Banking showed the same dependency from another angle. Customers could still use cards, ATMs or post offices, but app-based authorization and online account access were important enough that their failure created immediate friction.
The resilience story is therefore mixed:
- What failed: public websites, apps, tracking, online banking access and some digital approval workflows.
- What continued: delivery routes, parcel and letter collection, post-office banking, ATM withdrawals, retail card payments, SMS authentication and Wero transfers.
- What was not established: theft of customer data, manipulation of balances or compromise of the banking ledger.
Fallback channels limited the outage’s consequences. They did not make the disruption harmless: during the Christmas rush, even a temporary inability to verify a parcel or authorize a payment can create missed deadlines, extra travel and uncertainty.
What customers should do during a similar outage
- Check official status updates. Use La Poste or La Banque Postale’s official websites and communications rather than relying on social-media claims.
- Do not assume a missing tracking page means a lost parcel. Tracking can be unavailable while the parcel continues through the network.
- Try an approved fallback channel. Depending on the service, that may include SMS authentication, a post office, an ATM or a retail card payment.
- Do not share credentials to “restore” service. During a prominent outage, treat unexpected texts, emails and calls requesting passwords, card details or one-time codes as suspicious.
- Keep evidence of failed transactions. Save receipts, authorization messages and timestamps if a payment or delivery deadline is disputed later.
A service outage alone is not evidence that an account has been hacked. Customers should still monitor accounts normally and contact the institution through an official channel if they see an unauthorized transaction or receive a genuine security alert.
The bottom line
The December 22, 2025 incident was a serious DDoS attack on La Poste’s digital services and La Banque Postale’s online channels during France’s Christmas rush. It disrupted access, tracking and app-based banking functions, but it did not amount to a confirmed shutdown of the postal network or a reported customer-data breach. Physical deliveries and multiple banking alternatives continued, and La Poste reported broad service restoration by December 26.
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