A cyberattack on NewspaperArchive, a Provo, Utah-based provider of digitized historical newspapers, disrupted access to the platform used by libraries and subscribers across the United States.
In a March 10 service-disruption FAQ, NewspaperArchive said an unauthorized third party remotely accessed systems housing NewspaperArchive.com in February and encrypted some of them, disrupting site functionality. Notices posted by partner libraries suggest the outage was affecting patrons by Feb. 21. The company said it activated its incident response plan, brought in cybersecurity firms and began an investigation.
At the time, NewspaperArchive said it did not expect service to be restored before the end of March. It also said there was no evidence then that personal information had been affected and that a separate third party handles financial transactions and financial data.
NewspaperArchive has not identified who was responsible or described the full nature of the incident, and no public claim of responsibility has surfaced. DysruptionHub did not receive a response to an emailed request for comment.
The outage hit users well beyond NewspaperArchive’s direct subscriber base. Kern County Library in California directed researchers to local microfilm for materials no longer available online during the outage.
Oak Park Public Library in Illinois told patrons NewspaperArchive was unavailable and that the vendor was working to restore service. Fort Bend County Libraries in Texas posted a similar notice saying NewspaperArchive was unavailable and that the vendor was working to restore access as soon as possible.
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New Orleans Public Library also told patrons NewspaperArchive had experienced a service disruption and remained unavailable, adding that the company had not provided an estimated restoration time.
The company did not name a threat actor, say data was stolen or disclose any ransom demand in the public notice reviewed by DysruptionHub. NewspaperArchive said it intended to restore access only when it could do so securely and said paid subscribers would receive at least a 30-day extension because of the downtime.
NewspaperArchive says it offers content from 16,843 publications across more than 3,500 cities, serving both individual researchers and institutional partners.
Libraries have repeatedly faced cyber disruptions of their own in the past year. Fort Bend County Libraries in Texas said a 2025 cyberattack disrupted services for weeks, while Pierce County Library System in Washington later disclosed that an April 2025 intrusion led to a shutdown and a data breach affecting about 340,000 people.
NewspaperArchive had not publicly posted a revised restoration date beyond its end-of-March estimate, leaving libraries and subscribers waiting for a clearer timeline as the outage stretched on.
