St. Louis Public Library

St. Louis Public Library (SLPL) operates as a public library system headquartered in the United States of America. It provides essential library services to its community, including public access computing resources across its network of locations. The library manages core functions such as book lending and maintains patron information alongside its catalog holdings. Its operations span multiple physical branches within its service area. The primary market served is the local population relying on its resources for information access and borrowing materials.

The scale of SLPL's public computing infrastructure was demonstrated during a significant cybersecurity incident in January 2017. At that time, ransomware infected servers and rendered approximately 700 public computers across 16 library locations inoperable, severely disrupting operations including book checkouts. Attackers demanded a ransom of $35,000 in Bitcoin. However, critical systems like the book catalog and patron data remained uncompromised due to being stored separately from the infected systems. This separation and the availability of existing backups allowed SLPL to restore its systems without paying the ransom, though full recovery was expected to take several weeks. The incident showcased the library's reliance on distributed public computing resources and its practical implementation of data segregation and backup strategies to mitigate a major attack. Law enforcement authorities were notified to investigate the ransomware event.