The Royal Mail service has begun resuming international deliveries ever since it became the victim of a cyber-attack on Tuesday, January 10, which disabled its delivery tracking system.
The attack is suspected to have come from a Russian-linked ransomware group called LockBit, which is also the name of the type of ransomware used to cripple Royal Mail.
Cyber hackers like LockBit often sell this malware, which works by encrypting data and locking up systems so that they cannot be used, to other operators for financial gain or to blackmail companies into paying to regain access to their systems.
The Daily Telegraph reported that a ransomware note was sent alongside the hacks which stated “LockBit Black Ransomware. Your data is stolen and encrypted.”
The attacks caused severe disruption to the UK postal service which means that half a million letters were unable to move. Customers were told to stop sending letters and parcels overseas and although the matter has now been resolved, Royal Mail is still advising people not to send parcels internationally for now.
Royal Mail issued a formal statement on its website which has since been updated to inform customers of service changes.
It reads, “Following the recent cyber incident, we have now resumed international export despatches for all mail streams including parcels and letters across a growing number of destinations.
We are making good progress in despatching items that are already in our network across all our services. Please note you may see less tracking information than usual as we continue to restore our services.
At this time, we continue to ask customers not to submit new parcels for export as our initial focus is to clear mail that has already been processed and is waiting to be despatched.
We will update further on this service resumption as soon as possible.”
Royal Mail has since then announced on Twitter that they have “resumed International Tracked & Signed and International Signed services to all destinations for customers buying postage online. This includes parcel, large letter, and letter formats of these services.”
Even though services are now resuming, many small businesses that rely on the carrier to conduct business are being hit financially due to the disruption caused by the attacks.
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