Digital front-runner Korea chagrined by lack of backup for e-government

SEOUL, September 29 (AJP) - South Korea tops the OECD scale in digitalization and proudly teaches and exports e-government strategy and systems, which may explain the chagrin and furor over the mass-scale crippling of the public-sector electronic system.

Much of the work at public-service windows had to be handled in person after an outage caused by a battery fire at the National Information Resources Service (NIRS) data center in Daejeon, which brought down 647 civil service systems.

The blaze started during the relocation of aging lithium-ion batteries within an uninterruptible power supply (UPS) system.

A UPS provides short-term backup power to protect facilities such as data centers and hospitals, while larger-scale energy storage systems (ESS) deliver utility-scale and long-duration storage to stabilize the grid.

Unlike ESS, UPS systems lack multiple layers of safety features and require closer maintenance and monitoring of battery units to prevent overheating or overload.

The same kind of UPS-related fire caused the collapse of Kakao’s data center in 2022. Three years ago, a battery fire in the electrical room of SK C&C’s data center in Pangyo, Gyeonggi Province, cut power to the entire facility, resulting in a simultaneous outage of KakaoTalk and other services of the chat platform used by virtually every Korean.

The government mandated disaster recovery and redundancy requirements for private companies, and created a regulatory framework requiring data centers and internet service providers to undergo regular oversight and supervision.

Yet an administrative network used by local government officials nationwide also came to a stop for three days two years ago.

Since then, the government has been operating more than 1,600 national information systems across three locations: the main facility in Daejeon, where the fire occurred, plus branch offices in Daegu and Gwangju. Currently, 647 national information systems belonging to the Daejeon headquarters remain offline.

The government vowed to build a comprehensive data redundancy system to ensure smooth operation of government systems in the event of disasters such as fires, floods, or cyberattacks. But the NIRS budget for disaster recovery in 2023 amounted to just 2.6 billion won, or about $1.86 million, hardly enough to launch even a pilot program.

Experts warn of permanent damage if restoration does not take place within the first week. This poses an embarrassment for the government, which takes great pride in its digital infrastructure and global ranking.

Korea topped the OECD Digital Government Index for the second straight year in 2023, scoring 0.935, near the perfect 1. It ranked fourth in the United Nations e-government evaluation among 193 U.N. members.

The high ranking has translated into over $500 million in exports of government e-solutions from 2021 to 2023. These exports include providing overseas governments with the human resources, technology, and intellectual property needed to build e-government systems. Korea’s digital government capabilities also help domestic ICT infrastructure companies and software SMEs expand abroad.

South Koreans no longer carry physical ID cards thanks to mobile and biometrics-based identification across public and private services, from airport clearance to liquor purchases at convenience stores. As of the end of 2024, more than 4 million of the country’s 50 million citizens were using digital IDs.

The digital connection, however, highlights the danger of large-scale breakdowns such as the latest incident. Unlike the government, domestic cloud companies like Naver and Kakao already run AI-based anomaly detection systems.

These analyze temperature and power data in real time to detect early signs of overheating or anomalies, and proactively address cooling system issues.

Internationally, Google, Amazon, and Microsoft have implemented artificial intelligence for IT operations (AIOps) to optimize power and cooling efficiency while predicting anomalies in real time.

The latest mishap is a wake-up call, experts say, to hasten investment in backup infrastructure and consider adopting proven private-sector solutions like AIOps.

Lim Jaeho ajupresswogh@ajupress.com