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Government restores 40 percent of digital systems after NIRS fire

Published: 14 Oct. 2025, 16:12 Updated: 14 Oct. 2025, 17:57

Officials walk through the main gate of the National Information Resources Service headquarters in Daejeon on Oct. 13. [JOONGANG ILBO]

Roughly 40 percent of the government’s digital systems disrupted by a fire at the National Information Resources Service (NIRS) in Daejeon last month have been restored, officials said Tuesday.

"We brought 287 out of 709 affected government systems back online as of noon on Tuesday, putting the overall recovery rate at 40.5 percent," the Central Disaster and Safety Countermeasures Headquarters said.

The fire broke out on Sept. 26 at around 8:15 p.m. in the server room on the fifth floor of the NIRS facility in Daejeon, following what is believed to have been a lithium-ion battery explosion.

Investigators believe sparks flew during an attempt to move an uninterruptible power supply (UPS) battery from the fifth floor to the basement, triggering the blaze.

Authorities restored three additional systems on Monday: The intranet of the National Agency for Administrative City Construction, the remote sensing system of the Ministry of Data and Statistics and the Veterans Learning platform under the Ministry of Patriots and Veterans Affairs. The intranet is classified as a Level 3 system, while the others fall under Level 4.

Minister of the Interior and Safety Yoon Ho-joong answers questions from lawmakers during a National Assembly audit on Oct. 14 at the National Assembly in western Seoul. [LIM HYUN-DONG]

The government classifies administrative information systems into four levels based on factors such as user volume and impact, with Level 1 being the most critical.

Officials also restored 11 more systems on Monday, including the Ministry of the Interior and Safety’s website management platform and the Ministry of Data and Statistics's administrative data integration system. Most were Level 3 or 4, with eight of the 11 belonging to the Interior Ministry.

Among the most important Level 1 systems, 31 out of 40 — 77.5 percent — have been brought back online. For Level 2 systems, the recovery rate stands at 51.5 percent, with 35 of 68 restored. Authorities have recovered 119 out of 261 Level 3 systems, or 45.6 percent, and 102 out of 340 Level 4 systems, or 30 percent.

Lee Jae-yong, head of the National Information Resources Service, addressed the incident during a National Assembly audit of the Interior Ministry on Tuesday.

“I believe there were institutional and awareness-related weaknesses in how the battery relocation work was handled,” Lee said. “We need to correct these shortcomings.”

The government also said it has been able to accelerate recovery efforts since normalizing its integrated management platform nTOPS, which oversees internal operations and coordination across ministries.

This article was originally written in Korean and translated by a bilingual reporter with the help of generative AI tools. It was then edited by a native English-speaking editor. All AI-assisted translations are reviewed and refined by our newsroom.
BY MOON HEE-CHUL [[email protected]]