Douglas County Libraries cyberattack disables catalog and circulation services

Douglas County Libraries detected unauthorized activity on January 14, 2024. The attack disabled its library circulation infrastructure, disrupting online catalog access, reservation and hold placement, and in-person book checkout operations across the library system. Library leadership publicly described the interruption and reported communication from the attackers. The Play ransomware group was associated with the incident in reporting, but the publicly available evidence more firmly establishes unauthorized access and the resulting circulation outage than the precise ransomware mechanism.