Administrative Network Paralysis → Recovery → Another Error... "Did the Government Fail to Identify the Cause?"

Three National Network Failures in a Week
"Insufficient Cause Investigation... Did It Lead to Recurring Errors?"

As national administrative network failures continue, criticism over the government's poor management responsibility is growing. Above all, despite the government's recovery announcements, errors have recurred, and there is strong criticism that the government has failed to clearly explain the cause of the network outage.

There have been three failures in the national network within the past week. First, on the 17th, the administrative network 'Saeol Local Administration Information System' (Saeol system) malfunctioned, paralyzing the operations of local governments across the country, and the government's online civil service platform 'Government24' also went down. The Government24 service resumed on the morning of the 18th, and the Saeol system was restored on the afternoon of the 19th.

The Ministry of the Interior and Safety announced the system's normalization and promised continuous monitoring and situation management, but this time errors recurred in another system. On the 22nd, the resident registration issuance system temporarily experienced overload, causing difficulties for citizens processing civil petitions at local community centers nationwide.

Also, most recently on the 23rd, the Public Procurement Service's national comprehensive electronic procurement system 'Nara Marketplace' network was down for about an hour in the morning.

On the morning of the 20th, a civil petitioner is receiving a certificate issuance at the Yongbong-dong Administrative Welfare Center in Buk-gu, Gwangju. [Image source=Yonhap News]

Regarding the recent network errors, various speculations have emerged, including ▲DDoS attacks ▲conflicts caused by simultaneous updates. The government cited 'L4 switch' malfunction as the cause of the Saeol system error and 'server overload due to concentrated access from specific overseas IPs' as the cause of the Nara Marketplace error.

However, Professor Kim Seung-joo of Korea University's Graduate School of Information Security points out that the government's explanation is insufficient. In an interview on the 24th with MBC Radio's 'Kim Jong-bae's Focus,' Professor Kim said, "Regarding the Nara Marketplace outage, the Ministry of the Interior and Safety said excessive traffic was generated from several overseas computers. But basically, government systems are frequently targeted by DDoS attacks, so they have some level of countermeasures in place." He added, "If they were prepared to handle DDoS attacks, they should have been able to prevent a certain amount of traffic congestion, so I have doubts about why they couldn't stop it."

He continued, "The Ministry of the Interior and Safety released rebuttal materials saying, 'It is true that updates occurred simultaneously, but those systems are separate, so there is no possibility of mutual impact,' and 'Since it was part of a regular update, there should be no concern about conflicts.' Ultimately, they still do not know. Fundamentally, the Ministry cannot avoid criticism for poor management," he pointed out.

Professor Kim said, "It's really frustrating. When the Ministry of the Interior and Safety releases press materials, even experts read them and wonder, 'What is this about?'" He added, "So various speculations arise, then the Ministry explains again, and this cycle repeats."

He also pointed out that the background of the repeated network errors is primarily due to the failure to clearly identify the cause of the initial Saeol outage. The systems that caused errors?Saeol, resident registration issuance system, and Nara Marketplace?are all different systems. Nevertheless, because the cause of the initial administrative network outage was not clearly determined, the establishment of recurrence prevention measures was delayed, leading to similar problems recurring, which is the implication of his criticism.

Professor Kim said, "The cause of the overload in the resident registration issuance system on the 22nd has not been clearly identified," adding, "The initial cause analysis of the L4 switch and GPKI problems is not accurate. Because the cause analysis is lacking, it is unclear whether the intermittent failures that occurred afterward are all connected or not."

The cause of the Saeol error is attributed to the malfunction of the 'L4 switch.' Since the L4 switch was replaced on the 18th, both the government online civil service platform 'Government24' and the Saeol system have been operating normally. However, what caused the L4 switch malfunction still requires investigation. The Ministry of the Interior and Safety launched a task force (TF) for the reorganization of local administrative IT services on the 21st, involving private experts.

Meanwhile, on the 24th, access errors occurred on the government's mobile ID website and portable device applications.

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