Royal Mail hit by Cyber Attack ?

[C2019]

Just wondering if anyone has any information regarding this and what the genuine implications this will have to customers who have mail going to other countries. I posted around 15 things this week to the US, on top of strike action and now this it’s like the worst luck imaginable.
I do have a feeling however that because of strike action that this may be a deflection tactic to get back on track and stop people sending mail internationally so they can catch up

[P13]

Just wondering if anyone has any information regarding this and what the genuine implications this will have to customers who have mail going to other countries. I posted around 15 things this week to the US, on top of strike action and now this it’s like the worst luck imaginable.
I do have a feeling however that because of strike action that this may be a deflection tactic to get back on track and stop people sending mail internationally so they can catch up

We are not on strike at the moment though

[nutcracker]

Just wondering if anyone has any information regarding this and what the genuine implications this will have to customers who have mail going to other countries. I posted around 15 things this week to the US, on top of strike action and now this it’s like the worst luck imaginable.
I do have a feeling however that because of strike action that this may be a deflection tactic to get back on track and stop people sending mail internationally so they can catch up

The company certainly has a petty and spiteful working culture but normally the answer is gross incompetence. The chief executive was in charge of the test and trace farce so he has previous in messing up large scale IT infrastructure.

I think all international mail requires automation to be processed at its mail centre to get it onto its airplanes etc and is a process that cannot be replaced with a pen and paper too easily

[Nildesperandum]

I also ship to the US and usually everything works great, the cyber attack news is very alarming, must be stressfull & difficult for staff too, I hope it can be resolved quickly

[simmo11]

I do have a feeling however that because of strike action that this may be a deflection tactic to get back on track and stop people sending mail internationally so they can catch up

This thought did occur to me also - it is apparent from personal experience as well as posts on here and other forums that outbound international mail has been struggling since late November. I have had things posted early/mid-December either delivered in the last week or still undelivered; on the various forums there are stories of International Tracked items posted late November only getting an export scan from Langley in the last week or two.

Are they short on capacity both processing and outbound on airfreight? Who knows... But I don't think they'd stoop to inventing a cyber "incident".... although as above it did cross my mind as the last strikes are almost 3 weeks away and that excuse has now gone out of the window.

[simmo11]

Or... alternative hypothesis - something has been not quite right for a while, but they have been able to absorb/deflect under the "Christmas/Strike" umbrella... but now that has gone they have had no choice but to go public...either that or volumes have reached a tipping point which have forced their arm.

Either way, RM Management need to come clean about the situation at Langley.

[BenacreNick]

It's being classed as a "cyber incident", not a cyber attack.

[simmo11]

It's being classed as a "cyber incident", not a cyber attack.

what's your take on it?

[RobJames]

What I do not really understand:

Why is standard international mail (untracked) affected by such a computer problem?

I am no postal expert any more, certainly not for Royal Mail, but I used to work decades ago for a postal service in another country and have a basic understanding of the way mail used to be sent internationally: The airmail letters go into overseas mail bags and then onward to the destination country. That's it. It's the postal organisation in the other country that deals with the sorting and delivering.

And even for larger letters and small packets with CN22 labels, untracked, they go the same way to the other country, don't they? The customs procedure takes place at the other postal auhoritity, according to their system. What computer system is necessary for that at Royal Mail's end? To count the quantity of bags?

Maybe an experienced postie knows more and can enlighten me.

[Minischoles]

What I do not really understand:

Why is standard international mail (untracked) affected by such a computer problem?

I am no postal expert any more, certainly not for Royal Mail, but I used to work decades ago for a postal service in another country and have a basic understanding of the way mail used to be sent internationally: The airmail letters go into overseas mail bags and then onward to the destination country. That's it. It's the postal organisation in the other country that deals with the sorting and delivering.

And even for larger letters and small packets with CN22 labels, untracked, they go the same way to the other country, don't they? The customs procedure takes place at the other postal auhoritity, according to their system. What computer system is necessary for that at Royal Mail's end? To count the quantity of bags?

Maybe an experienced postie knows more and can enlighten me.

Over the last few years it has become a requirement that all international mail, whether Standard or Tracked, carry electronic customs information as well as a physical customs declaration - you may have noticed on Standard mail items you now get what's called a S13 UPU code, usually beginning as UM, UB etc - this isn't a tracking number, but a customs number that both customs in the UK and overseas can scan and all the customs information for the item pops up through the shared system we all use, that we all upload the information to

So each country now requires a computer system that

1 - takes the customs information and reproduces it electronically
2 - uploads that information
3 - shares that information with other countries via the international system in place

If that is no longer available and we can't upload and share that information (which it sounds like this incident is, as it's the only thing I can think of that would stop exports but still allow imports from other countries - as they can still send us information and we can still access it) then no international mail can be exported.

[gt94sss2]

I am no postal expert any more, certainly not for Royal Mail, but I used to work decades ago for a postal service in another country and have a basic understanding of the way mail used to be sent internationally: The airmail letters go into overseas mail bags and then onward to the destination country. That's it. It's the postal organisation in the other country that deals with the sorting and delivering.

I'm not a postie but assumed that the problem is in IT system used for sorting items to the correct country.

https://youtu.be/DbtYG3J3MTQ shows that a large part of this is automated and I assume not feasible to do manually with the volumes Royal Mail have.

[Nildesperandum]

sounds like they ran out of space on the spreadsheet for all those extra numbers

[simmo11]

Does anyone know if International Standard items sent without a Customs Barcode / CN22 / CN23 (i.e. letters, cards, postcards) are affected or not by this?

[simmo11]

Daily Telegraph reporting Russian Hackers behind the RM situation

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/20 ... er-attack/

[Nildesperandum]

Seems to be widely reported now as an attack by Russian hackers, presumably they are threatening to release the data and this put will RM in breach of security /in some legal jeopardy and that's why they have to pay the ransom?
But why can't they secure their systems, why are we still being prevented from sending mail overseas?