The Toronto Public Library (TPL) has announced that several of its services online have gone down after cyberattacks throughout the weekend, which occurred on the 28th of October, on a Saturday.

TPL is the largest Canadian public library, offering users access to over twelve million books at 100 branch libraries throughout Toronto. There are 1,200,000 members registered, and is funded by the basis of a budget in excess of $200 million.

An announcement was made on the website of Toronto Public Library, Toronto Public Library, while their main site is unavailable. The library states that these services are not available at the moment:

The announcement, however, clarifies that the library's branches are operational and operating in accordance with the established schedule. This means that users can borrow and return their books in the same way as they do. The branch's WiFi is still available, and phone lines remain in operation.

Furthermore, online services that are hosted in other locations and beyond tpl.ca, including Kanopy, Digital Archive, Digital Archive Ontario, TPL Kids, and 'Ready For Reading, remain readily available.

The announcement from TPL doesn't provide specific details about the kind of cyber-security incident it was a victim of but does mention there's no proof of customers or employees having been exposed to data as a consequence.

The business highlights its swift reaction, which is a result of its robust, active security measures. The company is asking for patience since a complete restoration of the system could take a long time.

"TPL has proactively prepared for cybersecurity issues and promptly initiated measures to mitigate potential impacts," in the statement.

"We do anticipate though that it may take several days before all systems are fully restored to normal operations."

As of the date of this article, at the time of writing, there were no actors who took responsibility for the attacks on the systems of TPL.

Canadian businesses and companies were the targets of a number of cyberattacks in recent times that affected accessibility to services and raised fears concerning potential data breaches.

In the last week, there was an IT interruption that caused five hospitals to shut down located in Ontario, which resulted in changing appointments for later times and redirecting cases that were not urgent to different hospitals.

This month, it was reported that earlier this month, the BianLian ransomware group claimed responsibility for the attack in September against Air Canada, threatening to leak more than 210GB of sensitive data onto their website for extortion.

In June 2023, Petro-Canada stations across the country were hit by a cyberattack that stopped clients from using credit cards. It also deactivated the reward system.