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Their systems are largely open to the public, their computer spaces might be the only computer some have access to. There was a time when the advice about a dodgy file was to just open it at the library computer.
Much of their staff might be outreach hires and so limited/no workexperience that might have endured corporate training around information governance or cyber security.
And they do that on a budget where they can't afford shoe strings.
honestly blame Elmo / DOGE for this; they are the $company who divested your security for you, thinking you could just "wing" it too
Yes, because public libraries are well known for being awash in spare cash and never ever operate on a shoestring budget.
Most of what libraries do technologically is now outsourced to SAAS companies that specialize in the library space (there are at least 2 major one in the US, and I think at least 3 or 4). (encore and bibliocommons are the 2 major ones that I remembered and am pretty sure I've seen at least 2 others).
If everything you are doing is in the cloud, I'd argue that recovering from a ransomware attack is more of a question of if the SAAS company did its job right (which it should be more capable of handling). Of course, that's a reasonable question if they did (similarly why I prefer paying with paypal or google or even (as not so common) amazon third party payment systems than a retailers own internal payment system, yeah they might screw up too, but they invest a lot more into not screwing it up).
I've noticed Spydus seems to have a big marketshare in the UK.
Your assumption that enough people would change their vote (or non-vote if they didn't turn out previously) based on this to make a difference, I think is unlikely to be correct. People complain a lot about public services when they don't work well, but seldom consider (or do but seldom prioritise them) them at the ballot box.
It is their right to "complain" since they pay for these services with their tax money.
But the point, if you'd quoted the whole sentence, is that they don't tend to vote in a way that might send the right signal (sweeping generalism here obviously, some people very much do) because other matters take their attention at the ballot box. Expecting the pause of a service an individual doesn't use often to change that, as was suggested in the comment I replied to, is an incorrect expectation IMO. Things would have to get very bad, with many public services affected, before the matter broke through to significant voting patterns.
It does look like that sort of swing is happening in the US, but that is due to a much wider collection of problems that people are feeling (of which the problems, actual now and potential in the near-to-mid term) with public services is just a small part.
Sure, let’s close down all libraries and all public services for that matter. Let the public feel the pain. They will understand and vote better next time, right?
You think it is lack of information that got people to vote for this nonsense?
No restaurant can “guarantee” that you won’t die from eating their food, but that doesn’t mean anything goes in the kitchen.
If we are going to use an SA analogy, this is closer to the recent case of a hotel chain where there were several instances of staff giving “randoms” keys to rooms that they should not have. Best practise procedures were not being followed, the ne'er-do-wells took advantage of this, someone else suffered as a result.
If we were being consistent, then to your later question, yes. But pointing this out is picking at society's reverse scale.
You are aware that personal information is routinely stored in places that you can break into with a literal brick to smash a window? Somehow its only computers where people turn off their brains and argue that proactive measures need to be 100% effective at blocking all attacks no matter how high the cost.
I don't think I've ever seen anyone say they should be 100% effective. Even those physical locations follow some physical security practices. The difference is that computers can be attacked from literally anywhere in the world, and good luck finding the people who did it.
My point was that anything may eventually be hacked. Even super sophisticated systems with tons of great minds working on security, all it takes is the right zero-day, or the right spearphishing campaign or other single oopsie.
Therefore, I was saying that obsessing over harshly punishing whoever made an oopsie doesn't really make us safer, because the less preventable type of hack will still happen eventually. Both types of attack affect the system and its users/customers/whoever just as much.
Ok. Where are the criminals who did this?