#CyberWeekly

France's national postal service was hit by a DDoS attack on December 23, right before Christmas. Pro-Russian hacking group NoName057(16) claimed responsibility, and French intelligence agency DGSI took over the investigation.

The attack knocked La Poste's central computer systems offline for days. The impact was immediate and widespread:

• Package tracking down — postal workers couldn't track 2.6 billion annual deliveries during the busiest season
• Banking disrupted — online payments at La Poste's banking arm went dark
• 200,000+ employees affected — systems weren't fully restored until after Christmas Day

NoName057(16) is no stranger to this kind of disruption. They've previously targeted NATO summit infrastructure and French government websites. Earlier this year, they were the subject of a major European police operation.

For Belgian businesses: Bpost faces the same risks. DDoS attacks don't require sophisticated hacking — they overwhelm systems with traffic. The defense? Having a response plan that works even when your team is on holiday.

Our biggest collaboration update yet. You can now invite team members, assign roles, and — if you're a security partner — manage client organizations from one place.

• User & access management — Invite team members and assign roles: Viewer, Admin, or Owner. Each role has clear permissions so nobody accidentally (or intentionally) changes what they shouldn't.
• Role-based security — Proper access hierarchy means admins can't modify owner settings, and last-owner protection prevents lockouts.
• Partner client management — Security consultants get a mobile-friendly sidebar to search, create, and switch between client organizations in seconds.
• New homepage & partner page — Complete visual redesign with clear pricing and a dedicated partner registration flow.
• Contact page — You can now reach us directly from the website.

Security is a team sport. Now the platform supports that.

On December 26 at 01:40, the "Gentlemen" ransomware group struck Romania's Oltenia Energy Complex — the country's largest coal-based power producer, responsible for 30% of Romania's electricity.

This came just six days after the water authority attack we covered last week. That's not coincidence — it's a campaign.

• ERP systems, email, website — all encrypted and taken offline
• National power grid safe — operational technology wasn't hit, but the "brain" of corporate operations was paralyzed
• Connected targets — the water authority manages dams that Oltenia depends on for cooling and hydropower

The Gentlemen group is relatively new (first appeared August 2025) but already one of the fastest-growing ransomware operations. Of their 39 victims last quarter, 16 were industrial organizations. They use compromised credentials and careful reconnaissance before striking.

The pattern is clear: critical infrastructure, holiday timing, connected systems. If your business depends on utilities or supply chains, your security baseline needs to account for cascading failures.

A threat actor known as "888" claims to have stolen 200GB of sensitive data from the European Space Agency (ESA). The alleged haul includes source code, confidential documents, and internal systems data.

ESA coordinates Europe's space program with a budget of over €7 billion and works closely with national agencies across the continent. If confirmed, this breach exposes:

• Source code — potentially for satellite systems and ground infrastructure
• Confidential documents — research data, internal communications, contracts
• Supply chain risk — ESA works with hundreds of contractors and partners across Europe

This is a reminder that no organization is too prestigious to be breached. ESA has some of the most sophisticated technology on the planet, yet the attack surface extends to every employee, every contractor, every connected system.

For SMEs in the aerospace or defense supply chain: expect tighter security requirements from clients. NIS2 already mandates supply chain security assessments.

As 2025 wraps up, the numbers tell a brutal story. This was the year cybersecurity stopped being an abstract IT problem and became a real business threat for companies of every size.

The headline stats:

• Ransomware up 34-50% — depending on which tracker you follow, attacks surged dramatically
• Europe = 22% of victims — with UK, Germany, Italy, France, and Spain most targeted
• $16.6 billion — total losses reported to the FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center
• Attack speed: 24 hours — average time from initial breach to ransomware deployment dropped 48%

For Belgian SMEs, the lesson is that you have less time to respond than ever before. When attackers can encrypt your systems within 24 hours of getting in, manual processes and delayed patching become existential risks.

The good news? The CyberFundamentals framework gives you a structured approach to closing these gaps. And with NIS2 now active across Europe, the regulatory pressure to act has never been stronger.

2026 resolution: don't be the 88% of SMBs that get hit because the basics weren't in place.