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Royal Mail has been hit by a “cyber incident” that left the UK’s postal service unable to send parcels and letters overseas.
Warning of “severe disruption” and advising customers not to post items with an international destination, Royal Mail said on Wednesday that it had notified security services. It declined to say whether hackers were involved.
The National Cyber Security Centre, which advises UK companies on combating cyber crime, said it was working with the National Crime Agency to understand the impact.
Royal Mail, whose services have been hit in recent months by strike action, said international packages already in transit may be delayed. “We would like to sincerely apologise to impacted customers,” the company said.
“The cyber incident has impacted our international dispatch documentation system,” Royal Mail said. “This produces dispatch notes for outgoing, export mail for transport and for foreign posts so that they can receive our traffic.”
Hanah Darley, head of threat research at cybersecurity group Darktrace, warned it could take weeks to restore Royal Mail’s systems, depending on the severity of the incident. “The information cyber attackers gain from having been on the inside of an organisation’s digital infrastructure can leave the victim organisation vulnerable to further breaches in the future,” she added.
The problems come two months after the group temporarily suspended its “click and drop” website because of a leak that allowed customers on the postage payment platform to see other users’ orders.
The incident comes as the formerly state-owned British postal service is locked in a dispute with postal staff over modernisation plans and pay. Steadily losing market share to rivals, Royal Mail wants to make changes including greater digitisation and automation.
Strike action by postal workers, which has contributed to the UK’s worst industrial unrest in decades, had already created backlogs at Royal Mail delivery offices in recent weeks, frustrating customers in the lead-up to Christmas.
Hours before the cyber incident was announced, the Communication Workers’ Union, which represents about 115,000 postal workers, confirmed plans for a fresh ballot on strike action, with results to be declared on February 16.
Royal Mail’s management and the CWU, who have failed to reach an agreement on pay and modernisation plans, re-entered negotiations this week through Acas, the conciliation service.
Royal Mail said the cyber incident had affected its electronic clearance system for international deliveries and that post within the UK had not been hit. Its import services were operational with minor delays, the postal service said.
It comes amid increasing concern about how well equipped even large businesses are to deal with the cyber threats that have intensified in recent years. On Wednesday, the Guardian also reported that the newspaper had been hit by a ransomware attack, with the personal data of UK staff members accessed.
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