South Korea’s Data Centre Fire Exposes Shocking Weakness in Government Backup

A massive fire at South Korea’s National Information Resources Service (NIRS) data centre in Daejeon has knocked out hundreds of government services, exposing serious flaws in the country’s digital resilience.

Investigators suspect an expired LG Energy battery caused the blaze, which erupted during routine maintenance on Friday. The disruption affected 647 government systems, including those of Korea Customs, the National Police Agency, and the National Fire Agency.

By Monday, only 62 services had been restored. Key sites, including the safety ministry’s portal, remained offline.

President Lee Jae Myung issued an apology, admitting the government’s lack of proper contingency planning despite previous outages in 2023. He has ordered emergency measures to strengthen cybersecurity and backup infrastructure.

Experts sharply criticized the government’s failure to implement real-time synchronization and recovery systems. “Such disruptions should never occur at a national agency,” warned Korea University’s Professor Lee Seong-yeob.

The incident echoes a 2022 blaze at another data centre that paralyzed Kakao messenger and financial services, raising fresh alarm over the country’s vulnerability to infrastructure failures.