The Transport Agency’s website stopped working on Thursday. The reason: The agency had failed to pay the invoice for its domain name.

It was on Thursday morning that many discovered that it was not possible to access the Transport Agency’s website.

– I have received information that we have operational disturbances. They have done an update, so it will slowly but surely improve during the day, said the agency’s press officer Ann-Sofie Masth to Samnytt on Thursday morning.

Missed Invoice

But those suspecting that Putin or Chinese hackers are behind it can now receive reassuring news. The explanation is more mundane than that.

The Transport Agency had simply missed paying the invoice for its domain name transportstyrelsen.se to the company Loopia, which administers the domain.

“An invoice was sent to the wrong address, which resulted in us paying it late. The consequence was that our domain was shut down for a couple of hours in the morning, and transportstyrelsen.se could not be accessed. The operational disturbance was resolved shortly after lunch. We understand that this has caused problems, and we apologize for it,” Ann-Sofie Masth wrote in a follow-up email to Samnytt.

Since the invoice was never paid, Loopia eventually chose to deactivate the domain name. After the invoice was paid, the website was reactivated.