"54-Minute KakaoTalk Outage During Commute Hours... Kakao Corrective Measures (Comprehensive)"

Ministry of Science and ICT Orders Kakao to Take Corrective Actions
Submit Results to Government Within 3 Months
"No Repetition of Digital Service Failures"

Regarding the recent KakaoTalk service disruptions, the government has demanded corrective measures from Kakao. It ordered the company to promptly inform users of the outages and to establish mid- to long-term plans to prevent recurrence of such disruptions. Kakao must submit the results of these corrective actions to the government within three months.

On the 20th, as Kakao entered an emergency management system following a data center fire outage and the resignation of CEO Namgung Hoon, employees are arriving at Kakao Ajit in Seongnam, Gyeonggi Province. Photo by Kang Jin-hyung, Seongnam aymsdream@

The Ministry of Science and ICT announced on the 31st that a total of three KakaoTalk service disruptions occurred this month, and that the Telecommunications Disaster Management Deliberation Committee convened to review and approve demands for corrective actions addressing Kakao’s shortcomings.

Earlier, the Ministry inspected the causes of the KakaoTalk service disruptions and the status of response and recovery efforts. It was revealed that three disruptions occurred on the 13th, 20th, and 21st of this month.

The first disruption lasted about six minutes, from 1:44 PM to 1:50 PM. It is estimated that 80% of KakaoTalk users experienced delays and failures in sending messages. The disruption was caused by an error during a file update operation on the data center server. It was confirmed that Kakao did not conduct a pre-test before the actual operation, failing to prepare for possible errors.

The second disruption also caused inconvenience to an estimated 80% of users due to message sending and receiving failures for about six minutes, from 2:52 PM to 2:58 PM. The cause was an error during an internal system function improvement operation intended to distribute network load. Although a pre-test was conducted, significant differences from the actual KakaoTalk operating environment meant the possibility of disruption was not anticipated.

[Image source=Yonhap News]

The third disruption occurred during the high-usage morning commute hours and lasted 54 minutes. It is analyzed to have affected about 8% of users, causing PC KakaoTalk login failures and delays in sending and receiving messages on mobile KakaoTalk. The cause was updating a Java program on another server in the same data center without resolving the error on the server that caused the second disruption.

The Ministry of Science and ICT stated that Kakao must establish and submit an improvement plan within one month and submit the results of corrective actions within three months.

The corrective demands include strengthening pre-test systems before major operations, enhancing operation management controls, supplementing manuals and guidelines related to telecommunications disasters, advancing monitoring systems to improve disruption detection, systematizing cause analysis and post-management of disruptions, and improving user notification of disruptions.

In particular, Kakao was required to develop and implement plans to enhance the pre-test environment to closely resemble the actual operating environment. It was instructed to collaborate with development departments for comprehensive response during disasters and disruptions and to establish company-wide mid- to long-term measures to prevent recurrence. Kakao was also ordered to utilize various channels such as social networking services (SNS) to enable users to quickly and easily learn about disruptions and recovery status.

The Ministry held a separate meeting with Kakao’s disaster response chief on the same day, urging Kakao to prepare responsible measures to provide stable services.

Minister Lee Jong-ho of the Ministry of Science and ICT stated, "Since digital service disruptions have significant impacts on society and the economy as a whole, we will thoroughly inspect the management systems of service providers to prevent recurrence." He added, "Kakao needs to fulfill its responsibility by improving organizational culture for disaster and disruption management and providing users with convenient and stable services."

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