Lee Junseok: "Structurally Flawed Systems Have Limits No Matter the Effort... National Information Resources Fire Should Spur Complete Rebuild"
Proposal Triggered by National Information Resources Service Fire
"Systems Without High Availability Must Be Rebuilt"
Calls for Independent Redundancy Systems in Daejeon, Gwangju, and Daegu
On September 29, Lee Junseok, leader of the Reform New Party, proposed a comprehensive overhaul of the government’s digital infrastructure in response to the fire at the National Information Resources Service. He stressed that simply restoring the system is not enough, and that outdated IT systems with exposed vulnerabilities must be fundamentally corrected.
On this day, Lee wrote on social networking services (SNS), “With government IT systems paralyzed for days due to the National Information Resources fire, we are now facing a choice that can no longer be postponed. Instead of populist policies that distribute 13 trillion won in cash, use that money to completely rebuild South Korea’s digital infrastructure.” In a post directly addressing President Lee Jaemyung, he stated, “We must recognize the essence of this situation. To be frank, systems that were not designed with high availability in mind may need to be rebuilt from the ground up.” He emphasized, “No matter how much effort is put in, structurally flawed systems will always have limitations. This is an issue that requires fundamental refactoring, and it will require sufficient budget and time.”
Lee pointed out, “Among the 17,060 government systems, those developed long ago will be virtually impossible to reinstall and restore in a short period of time,” adding, “The government must be very honest with the public about this fact.” He further noted, “Risks will persist until all structural defects are fully addressed.” Lee criticized the current state of the e-Government Standard Framework, which has been in place since 2008, saying it is now out of sync with the current developer environment and has been inconsistently developed by various outsourcing companies.
In this context, he called for legislative measures to guarantee high availability of government systems, the establishment of laws mandating 99.99% availability and geographic redundancy for all core government systems, the allocation of a special budget for IT infrastructure modernization, and a ten-year plan for a complete government system rebuild. He emphasized the need to establish a true redundancy system so that Daejeon, Gwangju, and Daegu can each independently operate all services, a complete modernization of the e-Government Standard Framework, and the development of in-house government capabilities.
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Lee stated, “This incident is not a simple accident, but a warning that reveals just how vulnerable our country’s digital infrastructure is. Ensuring that citizens can reliably access administrative services 24 hours a day, 365 days a year is the true livelihood issue and a fundamental duty of the state.”
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