A fire at a South Korean government data center several days ago has disrupted dozens of government online services, including ministry websites and emails, Reuters reported. The fire on Friday, September 26, which broke out at the National Information Resources Service (NISS) in the city of Daejeon, located about 140 km south of Seoul, forced the suspension of a number of government services. The service acts as a cloud server for many government services and databases for the high-tech Asian country, the agency notes, writes BTA.
The fire was likely caused by an explosion of a lithium-ion battery at the NISS, notes CNN. The fire spread to about 200 more lithium-ion batteries, causing a “thermal runaway” – the release of extreme heat into the server room, causing extensive damage to the servers and further complicating efforts to contain the blaze. About 170 firefighters and 63 fire engines arrived at the scene on Friday, with the main fire only brought under control by the morning of the next day. One of the center’s employees suffered first-degree burns to his face and hand.
The English-language Korea Herald reported that service disruptions, including postal services, continued into Sunday evening. The outage also froze Korea’s mobile identification system, disrupting hospital check-ins, boarding at domestic airports and other essential services that require identification. This is particularly worrisome ahead of the Chuseok harvest festival (this year on October 6), when city dwellers traditionally return to their villages and food is sent by mail. The Korea Airports Corporation has urged travelers at all 14 domestic airports to carry a physical copy of their ID. Key systems such as the Anti-Corruption and Civil Rights Commission’s reporting system, the Ministry of Science and ICT services, the Ministry of Health and Welfare’s social service portal, and the social service system are still affected. Services for paying traffic fines from police also remain suspended.
Even funerals are affected, the Junan Daily newspaper notes. Crematorium reservations are disrupted as the E-Hanyol funeral information system remains unavailable. The Public Procurement Office (PPO) also said that access to the national public procurement system known as the “Nara Marketplace” was restricted. Real estate transactions were also affected. The Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport said that its integrated property management system was experiencing errors, making it impossible to submit property transactions or rental contracts online.
“We can hardly expect normal civil service operations next week”, the “Joseon Business” newspaper noted. The government plans to restart 551 systems sequentially as soon as the data center's communication and security equipment is restored and to check whether normal service is possible, but experts who spoke to the newspaper believe that it will take at least two weeks to restart the “literally burned” systems.
The outages have raised questions about whether the South Korean government has sufficient backup systems for its servers, the “New York Times“ notes. After a similar outage of the government network in 2023, government officials said it could recover from a system failure within three hours using backups outside of Daejeon. Now they are justifying that the recovery process cannot begin so quickly because the problem was not due to a simple network failure.
"I deeply regret that the public has experienced significant inconvenience and anxiety, and as the nation's highest official, I offer my sincere apologies," South Korean President Lee Jae-myeon said at an emergency briefing on the crisis, as quoted by the English-language newspaper "The Korea Times." The publication notes that the head of state blamed the previous government for the problems: "With such critical infrastructure, it is obvious that a backup should be maintained to respond immediately to external damage, but it is shocking that there is no such backup." He stressed that the previous administration failed to establish appropriate preventive measures and announced an investigation. "Many have pointed out that the current fire is very similar in effect to the large-scale computer network outage in November 2023. A thorough investigation is needed to determine whether negligence in protecting the nation's core computer networks for two years led to this large-scale outage. There appear to be systemic problems in the way the nation functions. All ministries should conduct a thorough investigation to ensure that there are no problems with safety and security facilities in all departments as soon as possible," he added. "With the Chuseok holiday approaching - a period of increased postal, business and financial activity - relevant ministries should prioritize the rapid recovery and operation of systems closely related to daily life to minimize public inconvenience and confusion." In particular, the restoration of critical government services, such as support for vulnerable groups and passport issuance, must be accelerated, even if it requires working at night,“ the head of state concluded.
The South Korean government has come under fire. The opposition has pointed to how it recently imposed strict disaster response requirements on private sector companies, despite failing to provide adequate safeguards for its own administrative computer network, and for not applying the same strict standards to its own systems. The fire exposed the lack of a cloud-based disaster recovery system, and the opposition now claims that the government has failed to learn from previous system failures, South Korea's Yonhap news agency reported.
The opposition People Power Party has demanded the resignation of the interior minister, who was responsible for both the burned-out data center and the fire department. Party spokeswoman Che Bo-yoon recalled the behavior of current President Lee Jae-myeon during the previous collapse of the national computer systems, when he and his Democratic Party were in opposition. "The president should put into practice what he said two years ago. Why is he silent now? During the incident in 2023, Lee Jae-myeon said that each branch of government bears its respective responsibility and demanded the immediate dismissal of the interior minister and an apology from the president. Where is our president now? Are calls for responsibility only for others?" she said.
However, the national daily newspaper “Joseon Ilbo“ finds the causes of the problem not so much in the fact that politicians forgot about a backup copy of the system, but in the excessive reliance on renewable energy sources on a national scale. “This grid paralysis also serves as a warning against the government's reckless expansion of reliance on renewable energy. The fire originated in lithium-ion batteries in an uninterruptible power supply. Although small, it took 22 hours to fully extinguish it, as lithium-ion fires require a huge amount of water or immersion in cooling tanks. To compensate for the volatility of renewable energy - variable power depending on the weather - the government plans to expand energy storage systems - large-capacity batteries. However, this incident confirms the risks of lithium-ion batteries. If the current administration - passive in terms of new nuclear power plants and extending the life of existing reactors - realizes this reality, the crisis could still become a turning point,“ concludes the leading Korean publication.