Royal Mail cyberattack: CEO confirms postal service disrupted due to attack

Last week, UK’s Royal Mail claimed that it was hit by an unspecified “cyber incident”. The British mail service was unable to dispatch items to overseas destinations due to this incident. Now, Royal Mail CEO Simon Thompson has confirmed that the “ongoing disruption” at the UK postal service has been caused by a cyberattack. According to a report by TechCrunch, while responding to the questions put forward by lawmakers, Thompson told a UK parliamentary committee that Royal Mail was hit by a cyberattack. Moreover, Thompson added that the mail service believes that no customer data was compromised in the attack. However, the organisation is ready if the situation changes. As a precautionary measure, Royal Mail CEO also mentioned having notified the UK data protection regulator, the Information Commissioner’s Office.
Royal Mail cyber attack: More details
Royal Mail CEO Thompson’s court session was conducted to provide evidence to lawmakers regarding the ongoing dispute with the service’s union workers. At this session, Thompson confirmed the cyberattack on Royal Mail but declined to comment on the specifics of the attack. He claimed that discussing details of the incident would be “detrimental” to the ongoing investigation. However, he mentioned that the postal service “continues to experience disruption to its international export services” after the cyberattack.
How Royal Mail is fighting the cyberattack
The UK postal service hasn’t confirmed when this disruption is likely to end. These disruptions were compounded by the existing “backlogs and delays that have arisen from strike action,” the company claimed. However, Thompson clarified that a “workaround” is expected to be available soon.

He said that Royal Mail is no longer able to export parcels and letters through its postal services. Thompson said that the company has been working on workarounds to get the service “up and running again.” Several questions still remain unanswered about the Royal Mail cyberattack like the nature of the attack and who was responsible for it.
Multiple media reports claim that Royal Mail was hit by a ransomware attack that jeopardised the machines that printed customs labels for parcels sent to overseas destinations.
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