PARIS – A pro-Russian hacking collective has taken credit for a significant cyber assault that disrupted France’s national postal service, La Poste, just a few days before Christmas, according to prosecutors on Wednesday.

The cybercrime syndicate, known as Noname057, made their claim shortly after the attack, prompting the involvement of the French intelligence agency DGSI to spearhead the investigation, as stated by the Paris prosecutor’s office to The Associated Press.

This group has a history of launching cyber offensives across Europe, including incidents targeting a NATO summit in the Netherlands and various French government websites. Earlier this year, they were the focus of a major crackdown by European law enforcement.

La Poste’s central computer networks were crippled on Monday due to a distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack, and as of Wednesday morning, the issue had yet to be completely resolved, according to company officials.

The attack severely impacted postal workers’ ability to track shipments, and also caused disruptions to online payments at La Poste’s banking division. This incident struck a substantial blow to La Poste, which delivered 2.6 billion packages last year and employs over 200,000 individuals, during its peak operational period.

France and other European allies of Ukraine allege that Russia is waging a campaign of “hybrid warfare” to sow division in Western societies and undermine their support for Ukraine. The AP has tracked more than 145 incidents including sabotage, assassinations, cyberattacks, disinformation and other hostile acts that are increasingly draining police resources.