Technology & Science
France’s La Poste Hit by Second NoName057(16) DDoS in One Week
On 1 Jan 2026, La Poste and its banking arm’s websites were knocked offline by a fresh distributed-denial-of-service attack, only five days after the previous wave ended.
Focusing Facts
- Outage began the morning of 1 January 2026, making laposte.fr and La Banque Postale apps largely inaccessible.
- Prior attack ran 22–26 Dec 2025; both assaults were claimed by pro-Russian hacktivist collective NoName057(16).
- La Poste handles 2.6 billion parcels annually and employs over 200 000 staff, magnifying the economic stakes of any downtime.
Context
The tactic echoes the 2007 DDoS siege on Estonia’s government sites—then linked to Kremlin-aligned actors—and the 2015–17 waves against Ukraine’s grid, marking a two-decade trend: Moscow-friendly hackers using cheap volume attacks to signal displeasure without triggering NATO’s Article 5. In an era where a postal service—once a 19th-century symbol of industrial reliability—depends on cloud front-ends, each outage exposes the brittleness of critical civilian infrastructure that has digitised faster than it has hardened. Whether these incidents remain nuisance-level or escalate into data-wiping or supply-chain compromises will shape Europe’s cyber-defence doctrine far more than any single parcel delay; in a century where logistics and finance are increasingly software, the frontline is a login page.
Perspectives
European public-service and mainstream Western outlets
RFI, Yahoo — Portray the La Poste disruption as another front in Russia-linked information warfare aimed at undermining European societies. By stressing the Kremlin threat and quoting unnamed experts, they reinforce EU public support for tougher cyber-security spending and continued backing for Ukraine.
Turkish state-run media
Anadolu Ajansı — Covers the incident largely as a technical denial-of-service attack, noting authorities’ statements and the pro-Russian claim without wider geopolitical framing. The restrained tone aligns with Ankara’s delicate balancing of NATO membership and pragmatic ties with Moscow, so it downplays rhetoric that could alienate Russia.
Caribbean press carrying Associated Press copy
Jamaica Gleaner — Connects the hacking to what European allies call Russia’s broader ‘hybrid warfare’ campaign, listing dozens of alleged hostile acts across the continent. Relying on AP’s framing may sensationalise the threat for distant audiences and accepts Western intelligence claims at face value without local sourcing.