Fire Sparks Nationwide Service Outages, Monday Civil Crisis Looms

Widespread Disruptions Following a Major Fire at Daejeon’s Computer Center

A significant fire that occurred on the 26th of last month at the National Information Resources Service’s computer room in Daejeon has triggered widespread disruptions across central government ministries, local governments, and public institutions. The incident has led to extensive outages in computer networks, raising concerns about potential challenges in handling civil complaints and other essential services.

On the following day, the 27th, several key systems within the central government, some local governments, and affiliated institutions experienced service halts. This disruption has caused inconvenience for citizens, particularly those relying on digital platforms for administrative tasks. As of 11 p.m. on that day, Gyeonggi Province reported that 24 critical services were not functioning properly. These included the National Petition Board, Government24, Document24, the Information Disclosure Portal, and Nara Jangteo. The affected systems were unable to send or receive data, and services such as reporting transportation issues became inaccessible.

In response to the crisis, Gyeonggi Governor Kim Dong-yeon activated the Disaster and Safety Countermeasures Headquarters. Emergency inspections of data centers within the province have been initiated, alongside measures to minimize resident inconveniences. These include sharing hospital bed information and reinforcing 119 emergency personnel.

The Public Procurement Service, located in Daejeon, was directly impacted by the fire. Nara Jangteo, the national comprehensive electronic procurement system, is expected to face prolonged access blockages. This system serves as an electronic marketplace where the government and businesses interact, handling the majority of national procurement tasks. Its disruption raises serious concerns over the inconvenience it may cause.

Disruptions are also continuing in Chungcheongbuk and Sejong. Unmanned civil complaint issuance machines in townships and neighborhoods have been suspended, and electronic signatures for passport applications are unavailable. Municipalities and counties are struggling with the need to submit documents in person due to the inability to send online official documents. Sejong City reported that 52 out of 124 government-linked systems were experiencing access issues.

In Busan, the Ministry of the Interior and Safety’s simplified authentication linked to government systems and civil complaint applications via the National Petition Board are currently unavailable. Suyeong District experienced disruptions in services such as resident registration certificate issuance, relocation reporting, and tax payment certificate services. Dong District also faced partial suspensions in government-linked services, including passports and the National Petition Board.

Jeollabuk Province’s emergency disaster message dispatch server, located at the National Information Resources Service, is currently non-operational. Public officials are sharing situational updates between disaster management responsible agencies via electronic fax or SNS due to email outages.

Gwangju and South Jeolla Province are working on alternative measures to access some systems blocked by the fire. However, a "Monday civil complaint crisis" is expected to be unavoidable. Although internal computer networks are operating normally, most civil complaint service functions are complexly linked to the Ministry of the Interior and Safety’s Government24 key features. The previous day’s fire aftermath caused blockages in Government24’s National Petition Board, mobile ID, and other services.

Jeollabuk Bank and the National Agricultural Cooperative Federation are also unable to conduct mobile ID and resident registration certificate-related tasks, document submission services, and other Government24-provided services until the Ministry of the Interior and Safety system inspection is completed. However, financial transactions such as withdrawals are reported to have no major issues.

As of 11 a.m. on that day, Jeju Island’s online civil complaint consultations on its website were inaccessible. The provincial government and administrative cities are conducting a full investigation into the 273 operational information systems to assess their linkage with central systems and the extent of the impact.

Currently, around 600 major systems of central government ministries, including Government24 and the Ministry of the Interior and Safety’s website, have come to a halt, causing disruptions to civil complaint issuance and online application tasks. The 119 system also experienced errors in some functions, leading to the suspension of the "location tracking service." A temporary response is being implemented by having the police identify locations via the 112 system and share them with firefighters.

The Korea Coast Guard also experienced a paralysis of its internal business portal due to a GPKI (Government Public Key Infrastructure) certification system failure caused by the fire’s aftermath. However, core functions such as disaster response and investigations remain operational via separate communication networks.

The Korea Railroad Corporation (KORAIL) urgently extended the expiration date of the vulnerable group certification system from the existing 365 days to 395 days, a 30-day extension, as part of its response to the national information resources fire. The expiration date for basic livelihood security recipient certifications was extended until the 26th of next month.

Minister Yun Ho-jung of the Ministry of the Interior and Safety held a meeting of the Central Disaster and Safety Countermeasures Headquarters at 8 p.m. on that day and stated, "We will prioritize restoring essential systems that directly impact economic activities," adding, "We are repairing facilities and equipment at the Daejeon headquarters."

The Ministry of the Interior and Safety expects to gradually restart 551 systems that were suspended to safely preserve information systems if recovery efforts proceed well. A total of 647 government business systems are currently suspended.

Professor Hwang Suk-jin of Dongguk University’s Graduate School of International Information Security stated, "Computer equipment is vulnerable to heat, so it is expected to take a significant amount of time for recovery," and added, "If the system outage continues until weekdays, public inconvenience could escalate, so it is necessary to promptly disseminate the situation and preemptively guide whether offline processing is possible."