Gov't backtracks on network outage explanation, but rules out hacking

Interior Vice Minister Ko Ki-dong speaks about the cause of a network glitch that occurred on Nov. 17, which paralyzed administrative systems in local governments, during a press briefing at Seoul Government Complex in central Seoul on Saturday. [NEWS1]

The Korean government concluded that a router failure was the cause of the Nov. 17 government network outage, one of the four nationwide network glitches that inconvenienced the lives of many ordinary Koreans in the past week.

The Ministry of the Interior and Safety on Saturday went back on its initial analysis of the first network crash that affected administrative and civil service networks, over a week after the outage took place on Nov. 17.

“We have confirmed that the cause of the disruption was the network router, instead of the L4 switch that we mentioned earlier,” said Song Sang-hyo, a professor at Soongsil University, who co-heads the ministry’s task force on the matter, during a press briefing at the Seoul Government Complex in central Seoul on Saturday.

“There were also no signs of hacking so far.”

Earlier, the government attributed the Nov. 17 system crash to a likely error in the authorization system’s network service called the Government Public Key Infrastructure (GPKI), explicitly referring to the L4 switch connected to it.

According to the ministry, the L4 switch distributes online traffic to various servers.

However, after repeated tests, the ministry discovered an extreme loss of data packets when sent through the damaged router, which ultimately led to a system outage.

According to the ministry, around 90 percent of the data was lost when data packets of over 1,500 bytes were sent through the router. The router was implemented in the system in 2016.

The first round of the recent administrative chaos began on Nov. 17 when the glitch in the “Saeol” administrative network, used by civil servants to access government documents, interrupted the handling of administrative and civil works at district, city, and provincial offices. Although the system was restored in three days, a 20-minute outage shortly followed, mainly affecting administrative offices in Seoul last Wednesday.

On Thursday, the Public Procurement Service (PPS)'s administrative computer network experienced an hour blackout, disrupting the service of the online procurement system. The ministry suspects heavy access from overseas as one of the causes.

Another outage affected the government website and the application to display mobile identification cards on Friday afternoon. The system fully recovered after over six hours.

Following the interruptions, the government announced it would develop fundamental and effective measures to prevent such cases.

“We will come up with mid-and long-term improvements to stably operate a digital government,” said Vice Interior Minister Ko Ki-dong, adding that the ministry will draw up responsive measures to such crashes and inspect every piece of equipment.

The operating servers and supporting equipment are at the National Information Resources Service in Daejeon, with the Interior Ministry managing and overseeing the information service.

"The ministry said it will pull out a complete inspection on the equipment, but this would only work for the short term," Youm Heung-yeol, an information security engineering professor at Soonchunhyang University, told the JoongAng Ilbo.

"A new system to prevent and solve the crash itself is needed."

Developing a digital platform that connects the government, businesses and citizens is one of the Yoon government's pledges.

Korea ranked first among 29 OECD countries in the 2019 Digital Government Index. Last year, it ranked third in the United Nations' global e-government readiness index, after Denmark and Finland.

BY CHO JUNG-WOO [cho.jungwoo1@joongang.co.kr]