Boston Public Library Hit With Cyberattack

The Boston Public Library was hit with a cyberattack earlier this week that crippled its computer network, the library said in a statement Friday.

There is no evidence that sensitive employee or patron data has been compromised, the library posted in a statement on its website.

The library, founded in 1848 and the oldest large municipal library in the nation, “experienced a systemwide technical outage due to a cybersecurity attack, pausing public computer and public printing services, as well as some online resources,” the statement said. “Affected systems were taken offline immediately, and proactive steps were taken to isolate the problem and shut down network communication.”

The Library’s IT department is working with the mayor’s Department of Innovation and Technology on restoring services, and law enforcement has been contacted.

The central branch as well as about two dozen neighborhood branch locations remain open and workers are manually checking out books.

“We apologize for any inconvenience this outage may have caused patrons,” Kurt Mansperger, the library’s chief technology officer, said in a statement.