"Committed Due to Stress" Government Administrator Causing Over 50 Administrative Network Disruptions

[Asia Economy Reporter Seoyoung Kwon] A computer equipment manager who caused network disruptions in government ministry administrative networks 55 times over the course of a year was sentenced to imprisonment with a suspended sentence.

According to the legal community on the 2nd, A (32), a dispatched employee working on computer equipment maintenance and management at the government integrated data center, unplugged the power cord of communication equipment related to the Ministry of the Interior and Safety's internet network service, a shared item, without permission in the data center's computer room at 10:22 a.m. on March 15 last year. As a result, four Ministry of the Interior and Safety internet programs, including the electronic document authenticity verification center homepage, were found to have malfunctioned for about 13 minutes until 10:35 a.m. the same day.

This was not the first time A committed such an offense. It was investigated that A caused a total of 55 network equipment failures at about 20 government agencies, including the Office for Government Policy Coordination and the Ministry of Health and Welfare, over approximately 1 year and 3 months starting from December 11, 2019, using the same method. A's actions also affected a total of 85 minutes of server downtime at six agencies including the Ministry of the Interior and Safety on December 31, 2019, and a total of 77 minutes of connection failures at six agencies including the Ministry of Science and ICT's Satellite Radio Monitoring Center on January 5, 2020.

The repeated computer network failures that occurred were even pointed out during last year's national audit. Previously, Lim Hoseon, a member of the National Assembly's Administrative Safety Committee from the Democratic Party of Korea, stated, "The government ministries' computer systems stopped for about 20 hours and 30 minutes due to network equipment failures over 1 year and 3 months," adding, "Among these, 16 incidents affected government ministry work services, and the failures lasted a total of 586 minutes."

After being indicted on charges of damaging shared property, A maintained the position that "the offense was committed due to stress caused by workplace bullying." However, the first trial court sentenced him to six months in prison, stating, "The defendant, who was supposed to maintain and repair the computer network, instead caused the failures." On the other hand, the Daejeon District Court Criminal Appeal Division 3 (Presiding Judge Moon Bok-kyung), considering the defendant's claim that the sentence was too heavy, sentenced him to six months in prison with a two-year suspension, ruling, "Considering that he confessed to the crime and showed remorse, the original sentence was too severe."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.