Network crash shuts down civil services nationwide

Social Affairs

Published: 17 Nov. 2023, 15:25 Updated: 17 Nov. 2023, 18:24

Network crash shuts down civil services nationwide

A notice informs people of the systematic glitch that caused failures in the handling of civil requests and works at a district office in Seoul on Friday. [NEWS1]

Civil services across the country have ground to a halt as a network crash wreaks havoc on municipal systems.

The problems began with a glitch that hit regional governments' systems across the country Friday morning, and continued when the national government's civil service jammed at noon.

Chaos erupts as government service systems crash nationwide

Both regional and central governments still cannot handle civil requests and complaints as of 2:40 p.m. Government24, the central government’s one-stop civil service portal, is now paralyzed.

The administrative system called “Saeol,” which is central to the work of Korea's local authorities, experienced a systemic failure earlier in the day. It delayed the handling of administrative and civil works at district, city and provincial offices.

The Gwangju city government’s administrative portal as well as both its city and district system networks crashed around 8 a.m.

“This malfunction happened simultaneously in multiple localities across the country, including Gwangju. We are awaiting full recovery,” an official from the Gwangju city government said.

The ministry recommended that citizens use Government24 to submit requests this morning, but that portal has since been hit by the glitch and is no longer accessible online.

“The service is now suspended due to the errors happened at the network devices of the National Information Resources Service,” said Government24 in an official statement.

Some elements of the Supreme Court's online registry service malfunctioned due to errors caused by the administrative network.

According to the registry, the service “cannot process users’ requests intermittently because of errors at the system that shares administrative information and data. Services providing receipt notice of registration license tax and access to contract sheets of land and properties were halted. Also, users cannot use the service of attaching documents for legal purposes.”

“System networks suffering from glitches are now undergoing restoration and recovery,” an official from the ministry said.

BY LEE JI-YOUNG, LEE SOO-JUNG [lee.soojung1@joongang.co.kr]