According to Xinhua News Agency, South Korea's Ministry of Administration and Security said on October 1st that the Korean government document storage system was destroyed by the fire of the National Information Resources Management Institute last week, resulting in the loss of all relevant working documents of about 750,000 civil servants in the last seven years.

The South Korean National Information Resource Administration, located about 140 kilometers south of Seoul, is regarded as South Korea¡¯s national computer network hub, which broke out on the night of September 26, causing 647 government operating systems to stop operating, 96 of which were destroyed.

South Korea's Ministry of Administration and Security said the government document storage system was one of the systems destroyed in the fire. Since 2018, the South Korean government has advised civil servants to keep all work-related documents in the system rather than on personal computers. Since the system has not undergone external backup and all the files stored in it have been lost, it is expected that the business of relevant government agencies that rely on the system will be interrupted.

Preliminary information shows that the fire was caused by the explosion of lithium batteries in the machine room.The South Korean police arrested four people on October 1st, who were suspected of being dismissed.

As of the first day, 101 government operating systems affected by the fire have been resumed, with a recovery rate of 15.6%. South Korea¡¯s Deputy Department of Administrative Security Kim Min said the government has selected a cloud computing company responsible for moving the 96 systems that were discontinued due to the fire to a data center located in Chongqing City. Repair of the damaged system is expected to take about a month.

On September 29, South Korea¡¯s President Li said he apologized for the service disruption, noting that similar government service shutdowns had occurred in 2023, ¡°it is surprising that the government has not yet established a better backup mechanism.¡±

The National Information Resource Administration, which belongs to the South Korean Ministry of Administrative Security, is regarded as the center of the South Korean national computer network. The fire burned 400 sets of lithium batteries in the room, and is believed to have paralyzed a third of the online information services and systems of the South Korean government departments, including the position tracking function of 119 emergency relief services, online official document issuance services, etc. The websites of major government agencies such as the South Korean State Prime Minister's Office, the Ministry of Executive Security and the Treasury department were also inaccessible due to the fire.

Source: Xinhua News, Central News