Queens Public library under ransomware attack e-borrowing suspended (connect.queenslibrary.org)

130 pointsby rustyhancock7 hours ago86 comments

cush 2 hours ago

This happened in seattle a few years ago. Computer systems were down for months. They just let everyone borrow using an honor system.

gregl an hour ago

same for Toronto: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/toronto-library-ranso...

waltbosz 3 hours ago

https://spotlightdelaware.org/2024/09/23/delaware-libraries-...

This happened to my state's library system a while back. Public computers and free wifi were down for a few months, but no major disruptions of lending services. I don't think the state paid any ransom, instead they just repaired their systems.

utopiah 19 minutes ago

So I do support authors being paid fairly for their work, with attribution, yet I do not support DRM.

Since we are talking about e-borrowing I assume DRM are involved. If they are not, ignore the rest.

The point of DRM (ignoring their terrible side effect) is precisely to keep on controlling data even after content has been released. There is a validation mechanism (typically pinging back the digital right owner) to insure that the file can indeed be read. So... do not validate all the signed books already out, issue a new key for the library to "e-borrow" (hate that term) once again. Why is this even taking more than 1min? I don't get it. It feels like once again in theory it could be positive but in practice the negative side effects of DRMs trump out everything.

RobotToaster 6 hours ago

That seems a pretty terrible target for ransomware, it's not like public libraries have huge amounts of money.

lxgr 5 hours ago

Immoral criminals? Now I've seen everything.

account42 5 hours ago

The point is that there are surely targets that are better funded and thus more likely to pay out large sums of money in order to fix things.

lxgr 5 hours ago

Definitely, but ransomware groups generally have incremental customer acquisition costs/margins that most other industries can only dream of. They'll encrypt first, ask questions/set prices later. The whole process might even be fully automated at this point, "thanks" to cryptocurrencies.

I remember hearing that they do have customer support, though! Not sure if you can escalate to a sales rep to get a personalized quote or non-profit discount from there.

Geezus_42 5 hours ago

I think Darknet Diaries talked about that. I don't remember what episode.

matkoniecz 4 hours ago

> Not sure if you can escalate to a sales rep to get a personalized quote or non-profit discount from there.

some groups offer it (not out of goodness: rather on price discrimination grounds)

tombert 13 minutes ago

Really? Have you seen a man eat his own head? No? So then you haven't seen everything. And neither have I.

hahn-kev 5 hours ago

Right? Like what are they going to delete? The digital books? Who had what checked out?

redwood 5 hours ago

Kind of like "erase the debts" from Fight Club? "Haven't returned that digital book? Keep it!"

Geezus_42 5 hours ago

I highly doubt it was targeted.

luqtas 2 hours ago

i bet Sam is getting some e-books /j

no-user an hour ago

lol

rskeens 4 hours ago

A California nonprofit's computers were once stolen only to be returned by the thieves.

That would also have arguably been more risky of a redemptive act than the right thing to do in this circumstance.

bell-cot 5 minutes ago

Referring to this? https://www.huffpost.com/entry/thieves-apology-note-san-bern...

I am not a crook, but sounds like it was a pretty high-skill thief. So relatively low risk - and catching & punishing that thief mighta been a pretty low priority for everyone from the on-shift cops to the most idealist juror.

thatsabadlook 4 hours ago

Agreed. This is just shitty. Libraries are one of the few things holding the world together right now, and no they don't make tons of money...

bell-cot 17 minutes ago

Yeah. But if 0.1% of humans are in the bottom 0.1% for personal morality, and there are more than 8 billion humans on the Earth...

beerandt 3 hours ago

The libraries here have figured out that no one votes against library taxes and have built up a $250 mil slush fund on top of all new facilities and so many unnecessary "services" that they have a full fledged advertising campaign to tell people about these things they didn't even know they need.

They really are looking for a reason to exist in the digital age.

dghlsakjg 3 hours ago

That sounds awesome!

A beloved public institution, that improves society as a whole, is equally available to all, has enough money to do their mission well offer auxiliary services and to take advantage of PSA programs?

What a treasure.

cattenwallen 2 hours ago

I have never seen a service the library provided that I didn't think was at least marginally worth throwing some tax cents to provide for free for people that need it. I looked at the NYPL services page https://www.nypl.org/help/services and none of it looked not useful. Were any of them necessary? I mean, probably not in the way nobody needs a library, only that libraries are a fundamentally good service to a community.

xp84 an hour ago

I say this as a government-skeptical conservative: libraries are a great use of taxpayer money. Of all the things that people can vote to tax themselves for, here’s something that everyone can use. It’s great.

Many other uses of tax dollars are handouts for a very small number of people that most of us see no benefit from (and may even have side-effects that make things worse for everybody else).

afavour an hour ago

At this point I wouldn't be surprised if automated AI agents are probing vulnerabilities and following a preset playbook for extortion without any human involvement.

redwood 5 hours ago

Today I learned that Queens has a public library system that predated the consolidated New York City library system and fiercely fought to maintain independence rather than come under the control of a Manhattan-based system

rsstack 4 hours ago

Brooklyn too. (Bronx and Staten Island being served only by NYPL, the “Manhattan” one)

lelandfe 4 hours ago

And the consequence of this is that I have to get three different library cards haha.

rsstack 4 hours ago

Another consequence is that on the Libby app you have better chances to find something available, and each one’s limits are separate!

PLenz 3 hours ago

The tbree systems in NYC also serve the entire state, not just the city. Any NYS resident can get a card at each. I do and use the e book systems for all at the same time even though I rarely go into the city these days.

mixdup an hour ago

Seems that even as three separate systems, they'd at least just let a card from any of them work at all three. Or issue a single unified card and let that be the only point of commonality between them, if all other operations being independent is important to them

Kind of like how many regions will have a unified transit payment card, even if it covers a half dozen completely independent adjacent transit systems

justusthane 3 hours ago

Additionally, a Queens library card is available to anyone world-wide for $50 annually. I have a membership in Canada to access their digital library.

brador 4 hours ago

It’s a library.

Wipe the system and start again.

gosub100 4 hours ago

should be simple, restore from backup. right ?

KineticLensman 2 hours ago

When the British Library was hit by ransomware, some systems were down for months. They were old software that didn't run on the newer more secure systems the library had to migrate to. And there was no funding to rewrite them, not without cutting already affected services.

dotemacs 41 minutes ago

The British Library is still recovering from the 2023 attack, more than three years later... some systems are still not available.

criddell 30 minutes ago

So you pull everything off the shelves, enter it into the system, then reshelve it.

The library has something like 5 million books. How many could you enter into an empty system each day? Maybe 1000? That would take a decade to complete.

mcdonje 2 hours ago

The post headline could use some punctuation.

rusbra 6 hours ago

Is this due to the php vulnerability from a few weeks ago? Guessing they were on some php-based cms, and their staff never got around to fixing it in time.

sheepjumpmoons 4 hours ago

Ransomware infections frequently start with a phished user, not a popped web app.

vinnymac 3 hours ago

Not to mention since a few weeks ago several other CVEs have dropped that would have been just as exploitable. Such as *sshole

program_whiz 2 hours ago

I see a lot of people bemoaning the loss of a public service, but honestly I'm not sure the public library is an important service. At one time, yes, it represented access to knowledge for everyone. For everyone talking about how important this is, I'm curious how many have visited a library in the last 5 years to actually get a book.

Today, it could probably disappear and no one would miss it. There's a reason these places operate on a shoestring budget and haven't bothered to update software security. The services we value, we pay for or vote for. If there was a proposition to close libraries in favor of some other minor benefit (e.g. one extra field trip for every school child per year), it would probably lose badly.

Probably most of the relevant functions of a library can be accomplished by other more efficient means. Student loan forgiveness (librarians), homeless shelters with computers, and free daycare for kids. That's basically what people use it for now, and all can be better done if we just admit what its for and do that instead.

vel0city 2 hours ago

> For everyone talking about how important this is, I'm curious how many have visited a library in the last 5 years to actually get a book.

At least every other week if not more often. I also use the library digital services a good bit. There's always lots of people at the libraries I go to browsing books, I imagine they're also checking them out.

> it could probably disappear and no one would miss it.

The libraries I go to have so many people using their various services constantly. People studying and reading. Kids playing, exploring and reading. 3D printers buzzing. Classes and events being hosted.

> one extra field trip for every school child per year

You're going to replace something lots of people use across all age ranges constantly with a single day event for only children once a year? Sounds like a terrible loss IMO.

I agree a library is way more than just a place to get books today. They do offer a lot of community center features, and I think modern library designs should cater to that need as well. But they're not homeless shelters, they're not daycares. They still have their own specific use, a general place of learning and knowledge for all people. A place for all the community to come together, not just little kids or just the homeless. It's just the way we go about sharing that has evolved a bit over time compared to the stodgy old libraries of the past.

cattenwallen 2 hours ago

NGL it is crazy to me to declare no one needs a library when a new hardcover book is at least $30. I would be out hundreds of dollars, probably over a thousand a year, if I had to buy new every time I wanted to read some book I heard of and maybe didn't even enjoy (the guilt-free "read 20% decide its not for me" is amazing).

LtWorf an hour ago

Basically most people do not read, and most people here have no social life.

Libraries are for reading and socialising, so many users here have a really really hard time to imagine that someone might have some benefit from them.

cattenwallen an hour ago

Yeah but even if I didn't read, I would want any kids I own/any kids someone else owns to be able to access books, and even middle grade hardcover chapter books can be $30. I can't imagine paying even $10 for every single big flippy book they give the toddlers, that's gotta be at least a hundred a week just for the luxury of reading to the child for bed.

neom an hour ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_place

Personally, I believe these are important for a functional society more generally.

hgoel an hour ago

Always shocking how willing some Americans are to tear down services that a large portion of the world would envy. Particularly when they can't even be bothered to look up what the service provides to the community.

dieselgate 13 minutes ago

I live a few blocks from a library and work there, borrow movies on dvd and books all the time. I see my neighbors there more often than by the house

II2II 8 minutes ago

> Probably most of the relevant functions of a library can be accomplished by other more efficient means.

Two points:

Many of those relevant functions were picked up by libraries over the years due to the lack of, or cutbacks to, other government services.

Some people prefer, or can only use, services offered through libraries because they offer them with few, or no, questions asked. That is rarely the case with dedicated services, where funding often has more conditions tied to it.

rustyhancock 7 hours ago

Unfortunately, QPL has suffered a ransomware incident and currently much of the online access is unavailable

lynx97 6 hours ago

I wish the headlines around such things were more honest and would just say the truth: "$company is currently offline because we never really invested in security and thought we could just wing it"

reaperducer 6 hours ago

I wish the headlines around such things were more honest and would just say the truth: "$company is currently offline because we never really invested in security and thought we could just wing it"

Yes, because public libraries are well known for being awash in spare cash and never ever operate on a shoestring budget.

28304283409234 6 hours ago

Exactly. No sarcasm. Public services should stop hiding the pain. People voted for this. They should carry the pain. In this case the QPL should have said decades ago: “we cannot offer these services in a secure manner on this budget, therefor we will stop offering our services.” Instead they choose to “wing it”.

matwood 6 hours ago

It should be noted that the NY library system (NYPL, QPL, BPL) are some of the most well funded libraries in the world, and they still have issues like this. Smaller libraries have no chance.

compsciphd 5 hours ago

I'm unconvinced this is true.

Most of what libraries do technologically is now outsourced to SAAS companies that specialize in the library space (there are at least 2 major one in the US, and I think at least 3 or 4). (encore and bibliocommons are the 2 major ones that I remembered and am pretty sure I've seen at least 2 others).

If everything you are doing is in the cloud, I'd argue that recovering from a ransomware attack is more of a question of if the SAAS company did its job right (which it should be more capable of handling). Of course, that's a reasonable question if they did (similarly why I prefer paying with paypal or google or even (as not so common) amazon third party payment systems than a retailers own internal payment system, yeah they might screw up too, but they invest a lot more into not screwing it up).

tweetle_beetle 4 hours ago

There's a good list illustrating the market at https://librarytechnology.org//products/

I've noticed Spydus seems to have a big marketshare in the UK.

xp84 an hour ago

The data is probably is somewhat safe in the cloud. I expect what’s infected is a bunch of PC clients locally. The logical thing that could have happened is someone with an admin level of access on the Windows domain opened an attachment or got phished, and that allowed the ransomware to deploy to all the on-prem systems. Unless they have customized the ransomware to do anything special for this particular library software, it may be not all that bad in terms of data at risk. Though it’s possible the human attackers received cloud software credentials, and could have used that to exported patron data to threaten to leak.

soco 6 hours ago

And they would risk being completely shut down, I assume. Is that a better option? I'm not even talking about the livelihood of the librarians, but about the loss of the public service.

UpsideDownRide 5 hours ago

Winging it and making do with what you can is still probably a great deal for the public. Assuming that something shouldn't be done if it can't be done very well is an interesting position to take.

typicaldev 5 hours ago

Typical developer response: if you can’t do X 100% properly you shouldn’t be doing it.

Sure, let’s close down all libraries and all public services for that matter. Let the public feel the pain. They will understand and vote better next time, right?

You think it is lack of information that got people to vote for this nonsense?

dspillett 5 hours ago

Closing things down is the argument taken to a logical extreme. Could they function without collecting that much PII though? If you can't do it right, don't do it, is far more reasonable when limited to just the collection of PII or other potentially sensitive information. Some identifying data might be absolutely required of course, but the great many cases like this show that collecting the absolute minimum must become the default choice.

lynx97 5 hours ago

If you leave your car unlocked and police detects that, they can confiscate your keys and probably even fine you after you collected them. The same principle applies to everything. To a certain extend, it is your duty to secure things. Just putting a sign there "please dont fuck with me" isn't enough these days.

dspillett 5 hours ago

What if the budget is cut so harshly that there is no budget for someone who might potentially notice the problem (and fix it before it is exploited, or make the “we have to stop” decision) at all? The problem becomes undetectable until exploited, so you can't proactively shut things down.

Your assumption that enough people would change their vote (or non-vote if they didn't turn out previously) based on this to make a difference, I think is unlikely to be correct. People complain a lot about public services when they don't work well, but seldom consider (or do but seldom prioritise them) them at the ballot box.

xtiansimon 4 hours ago

That's the yardstick we use for corporations who put profit before safety, and you want use it with government services. Good luck with that.

cush 2 hours ago

Was it really so bad the last time you visited a Queens Public Library?

p-e-w 5 hours ago

That’s not an excuse. They chose to operate an online service, one that collects personal information. That entails the responsibility to secure it. If they can’t do that, they shouldn’t have offered the service.

piker 5 hours ago

Sort of a "she was asking for it" kind of situation, I take it?

p-e-w 5 hours ago

If you process personal data, you must secure it against attacks. Are you suggesting that they could just put the addresses of their customers on their website with a warning not to download them, and if someone downloaded them anyway then it would be the fault of that person that they were leaked?

gusgus01 5 hours ago

According to this logic, anyone using PHP should also not be processing personal data, and of course Java, and also Javascript, and any other language that has had a huge zero-day. In NYS, your name is considered personal data, so these libraries should not have any digital collection of the names of their members let alone any online services. Although, I'd prefer we start with Meta, Amazon, Alphabet, Apple, etc when it comes to making them lose the right to storing all personal data every time they have a vulnerability.

dspillett 5 hours ago

There is a difference between being hit by the exploit of a zero-day and being hit by the exploit of something (incorrect security implementations) that has been known to be incorrect for years, decades even. The zero-day in PHP is not your fault (unless perhaps you wrote or maintain that bit of PHP) but bad security implementation using PHP (silly example: not bothering to hash password because it is easier and allows you to allow for typos which is convenient for the user) is ultimately the organisations fault.

SkyBelow 4 hours ago

Society hold a strong double standard when it comes to the notion of blame in criminal acts. In some cases, it is fully put on the criminal. In other cases, it is put on victims of the criminal. While each case can use logic to try to defend it, they are different standards not used consistently. Trying to call out this double standard is a sort of act of profaning the current social norm and not appreciated by most, no different than trying to attack the dominant moral system 500 or 1000 years ago for inconsistencies.

If we were being consistent, then to your later question, yes. But pointing this out is picking at society's reverse scale.

dspillett 5 hours ago

Not really. The victim here is the people whose information has been distributed, not the system (and the people running it) the information was exfiltrated from.

If we are going to use an SA analogy, this is closer to the recent case of a hotel chain where there were several instances of staff giving “randoms” keys to rooms that they should not have. Best practise procedures were not being followed, the ne'er-do-wells took advantage of this, someone else suffered as a result.

Steve16384 5 hours ago

Can any online service guarantee security?

p-e-w 5 hours ago

The relevant part isn’t whether they can guarantee security, it’s whether they followed best practices in attempting to ensure it.

No restaurant can “guarantee” that you won’t die from eating their food, but that doesn’t mean anything goes in the kitchen.

account42 5 hours ago

Or alternatively we could hold criminals responsible and return to a high trust society where you can provide public services without having your own military department.

You are aware that personal information is routinely stored in places that you can break into with a literal brick to smash a window? Somehow its only computers where people turn off their brains and argue that proactive measures need to be 100% effective at blocking all attacks no matter how high the cost.

p-e-w 5 hours ago

> Or alternatively we could hold criminals responsible

Ok. Where are the criminals who did this?

Geezus_42 4 hours ago

> Somehow its only computers where people turn off their brains and argue that proactive measures need to be 100% effective at blocking all attacks no matter how high the cost.

I don't think I've ever seen anyone say they should be 100% effective. Even those physical locations follow some physical security practices. The difference is that computers can be attacked from literally anywhere in the world, and good luck finding the people who did it.

xp84 an hour ago

But even the best physical security principles really only deter polite criminals. The breach is just as impactful whether someone leaves a door unlocked, or if someone just observes the hour a janitor leaves at night and waits outside the door and clubs him before he can lock up. What difference does it make to those affected by the breach between those two situations?

jonathanstrange 5 hours ago

That's a somewhat naive take, ransomware attacks have been launched in the past against many organizations that spend a lot on security such as the Dodd Group, various airports, healthcare providers, and energy infrastructure. The Ukraine war has shown that virtually nothing is secure against dedicated attacks, all kinds of government sites, satellite communications, and even live TV programming have been attacked successfully by both sides. In the war, the attacks are more destructive, but the same techniques for entry could also be used by ransomware.

rustyhancock 4 hours ago

Libraries also have a extremely difficult task, they have complex, bespoke/customized older technology backends.

Their systems are largely open to the public, their computer spaces might be the only computer some have access to. There was a time when the advice about a dodgy file was to just open it at the library computer.

Much of their staff might be outreach hires and so limited/no workexperience that might have endured corporate training around information governance or cyber security.

And they do that on a budget where they can't afford shoe strings.

mbac32768 5 hours ago

What's the right percentage of its budget a year that a public library should spend on cybersecurity? 10%? More or less?

Geezus_42 4 hours ago

If only we could have some kind of jobs program where the government could pay people to fix their crap. A side benefit would be a reduction in unemployment.

mapontosevenths 3 hours ago

There are no unemployed cybersecurity professionals (who are qualified). There is likely a fraction of a percent who are "Between jobs" and that's about it. It's still very difficult to find and hire qualified candidates, even despite the recent surge in programmers making the leap.

jareklupinski 4 hours ago

when it is other nation states that are attacking, its up to the nation you are in to defend you. you dont expect costco to defend itself against Spetznaz?

honestly blame Elmo / DOGE for this; they are the $company who divested your security for you, thinking you could just "wing" it too

ada-h00k 3 hours ago

You can't really expect a library with hardly any money to do something like that. With companies, however, I would expect them to have a backup of their entire system so that, if something like this happens, they can simply format everything and restore the backup without significant downtime. Ideally, this should be done in a way that isn’t tied to specific hardware. Then they can simply store the backup with AWS or a similar provider and, if necessary, activate the server and continue working from there.