International mail in and out of the UK disrupted (Wednesday 11th January 2023)

  • Thread starter Thread starter Harrison
  • Start date Start date
  • Replies Replies 10
  • Views Views 778
Harrison

Harrison

Member
Joined
Dec 1, 2007
Posts
10,149
Country
UK
Region
West Sussex
Last Wednesday Royal Mail was attacked by a Russian Hacking group who managed to gain entry to their international shipping servers. They attacked the systems with Ransomware and locked out the whole system. This meant that no international mail could be processed, scanned or tracked.

One week later the systems are still down and Royal Mail cannot receive or send any international mail in or out of the UK. Therefore please don't try to send, receive or place any international orders to or from the UK.

As of today, the 18th January, the CEO cannot give a date for when the systems will be back up and running. The government and GCHQ are involved in the investigation and in trying to repair and fix the issue.

If I learn more I will let you know.
 
I read the news too!

I tend not to use RM for international, the service tends to be overpriced and poor, in my experience.
 
Unfortunately my copy of Devil's Temple was shipped on December 19 and the last (and only) update of the tracking I found on RM website was on January 6 when they said that the parcel was received at "LANGLEY HWDC, our international processing centre. Your item is being prepared for despatch overseas".
One month and it is still in UK... very poor service and if I say that, as an Italian, the thing is really worrying...
 
Last edited:
Unfortunately my pair of SuperBuster-11 chips from Analogic.co.uk is caught up in this situation as there is no tracking info from it being sent 1 week ago.
 
There won't be any tracking information because it is the international tracking computer system that was attacked by the randomware and RM has been locked out of the system.

If you remember the recorded delivery tracking on the RM website went down a few weeks ago. I'm wondering if that was a test attack before this real one haopened.

I've only been able to gain information indirectly by asking other Line Managers at Royal Mail for updates. The truth is no one really knows how bad the attack was, what damage it has done, if the situation can be fixed, or how long it will take before international shipping can resume.

I've heard rumours of it possibly costing £6M is fix. But that is just a rumour.

Eventat the Government select commitee meeting on Tuesday, when the CEO of RM had to face a panel of MPs, he refused to give any real answer, just saying it was being worked on and hopefully there would be an update soon. Most of us working for Royal Mail are livid with this slimy toad faced CEO Simon Thompson who in his 2 years in the job has succeeded in bringing the company to its knees.

But please don't view this as a reflection of postmen or the rest of the postal workers in the network. They all still work hard every day trying to deliver all thy mail that going through the system. The only reason mail gets delayed it management. A lack of staff on deliveries means one nan can only deliver so much in one day so had to prioritise what gets delivered. I can however confirm there is no delayed mail at mail centres. Any mail held for delivery will be a delivery offices and will be delivered asap.

But the issue with international mail is as it stands not possible. No international mail is coming in or leaving the country. And there is no date for when this will be resolved.
 
Some update is also here:

International incidents update

International updates for the Royal Mail service - a round up of any issues which may be affecting mail services to and from countries around the world.
business.help.royalmail.com business.help.royalmail.com
 
I bought MEGA 65 back in june or July and still waiting !!!
 
That's too long. Make an official inquiry.

I had a package shipped from USA at the end of November. It went via UK and was there for around 10 days in December (I think postal workers were on strike then). I got it 2nd week of January - it was also at our Customs for a good week or so.

If it takes more then 7-8 weeks for delivery and it's stuck somewhere on the tracking info, requires some attention. Tracking info also get invalidated over some period (6-7 months?).
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom