A cyberattack closed all locations of the Deschutes County Public Library Friday.

It was unclear who was behind the attack, how they infiltrated library servers or what they hoped to gain, said library director Todd Dunkelberg.

Customer and staff information were likely not compromised through the breach, he said, but “I won’t make a definitive statement until we’ve had three days to go through and really analyze everything.”

Library branches in Bend, Redmond, Sisters, Sunriver and La Pine were offline and shuttered until Monday. Dunkelberg said the library is working with an outside cybersecurity firm, Arete, to investigate the hack, after staff discovered suspicious activity through antivirus software alerts on Thursday morning.

“We immediately shut down all remote access, which seemed to stop the activity. And then we started working with this third party team,” Dunkelberg said.

An unknown outsider had accessed servers containing the library’s public relations materials, such as flyers advertising programs, photos and other items “that we can easily replicate,” Dunkelberg said.

“If they were hoping for something exciting, they’re about to be disappointed,” he added.

The Deschutes Public Library is the largest public library system east of the Cascades in Oregon, lending roughly two million items a year. This marks the first successful cyberattack on the system, and the first time anything besides a blizzard has prompted a multi-day emergency closure in Dunkelberg’s 16-year tenure.

Cyberthreats have hobbled other Pacific Northwest libraries before. Last year, a ransomware attack on Seattle Public Library affected nearly 27,000 people, compromising Social Security numbers and health care information for staff, the Washington Attorney General’s Office found.

News Source : https://www.opb.org/article/2025/12/12/cyberattack-deschutes-county-library-closed-temporarily/