SWAN member libraries-
The Aspen Discovery catalog on Wednesday, November 13th began to experience performance
issues-slowness with search results, long waits for account login. This lasted until
Friday when our hosting provider ByWater Solutions put in place a solution and the
performance returned to normal.
What was happening was our hosted Aspen server was undergoing a denial-of-service attack.
This was not a security breach, so no patron data was affected. The server was undergoing
a huge amount of service requests, potentially thousands per second from a bot network.
ByWater blocked the origin of the denial-of-service attack, but it required blocking some
IP addresses that have left some member libraries blocked from the Aspen catalog. We have
resolved all but three libraries, with SWAN staff going on site or arranging consultations
with these libraries: Richton Park, Brookfield, and River Grove.
If your library is experiencing a blocked message when accessing the catalog, please open
a ticket with SWAN using the link below.
https://support.swanlibraries.net/form/94559
The details of this SWANcom are repeated on the news post below.
https://support.swanlibraries.net/news/2024-11/94753
I apologize for not getting an explanation out sooner. We learned about the details this
morning and I wanted to update everyone about the situation. We are coordinating with
ByWater to put a long-term resolution in place to prevent a denial-of-service attack in
the future.
Regards,
Aaron
Aaron Skog
Executive Director
aaron@swanlibraries.net<mailto:aaron@swanlibraries.net> * 630-326-7022
My pronouns: he/him/his
SWAN Library Services
800 Quail Ridge Drive, Westmont, IL 60559
swanlibraries.net<https://swanlibraries.net/> *
catalog.swanlibraries.net<https://catalog.swanlibraries.net/>