The fire at the National Information Resources Service (NIRS) completely disrupted government IT services, reaffirming the reality that in a digital and AI society, a government computer network outage can mean a total societal outage. The failure to operate, despite backup and security systems in place, has fueled growing calls for an urgent review of the national IT infrastructure.

On the evening of September 26, a fire broke out in the computer room of the National Information Resources Service headquarters in Yuseong-gu, Daejeon, causing a complete shutdown of major government IT services, leading to nationwide chaos.

This accident is believed to have been caused by a lithium-ion battery explosion during UPS (uninterruptible power supply) replacement work.

242 personnel, including firefighters, police officers, and military personnel, and 67 pieces of equipment were deployed to extinguish the fire, and the fire was completely extinguished at 6:00 PM the next day.

On the other hand, the damage was enormous. A total of 647 computer systems were down, and as of the morning of September 29, only 39 had been restored.

Due to this fire, all major public services, including Government24, mobile ID cards, unmanned civil service issuance machines, the National Petition Center, and each ministry's website, were shut down.

Accordingly, local civil complaint windows such as community centers and district offices are experiencing great confusion, and it is recommended to check by phone before visiting.

Additionally, digital administrative services such as resident registration card authenticity verification, electronic certificate issuance, national secretary, and public MyData service were restricted.

Banking operations are also experiencing disruption. Although identity verification is possible with a physical driver's license, passport, etc., resident registration cards and national veterans' certificates cannot be used, which inevitably leads to delays in financial transactions.

In particular, the suspension of the 119 text and video reporting service created a serious gap in emergency response.

Prime Minister Kim Min-seok visited the site immediately after the fire and ordered swift recovery efforts, but the recovery process is slower than expected.

Accordingly, concerns are growing that public inconvenience will be prolonged.

The Ministry of the Interior and Safety has announced emergency measures, including extending the deadline for filing and paying local taxes to the 15th of next month.

Experts point to the failure of the backup system as the key issue in this incident.

Despite having a redundant center, distributed storage, and disaster recovery system, the National Information Resources Service failed to connect in an actual crisis situation.

Experts emphasize that, “There was a lack of practical response manuals and training that assumed disasters,” and that a viable crisis response system is needed, not just a simple system.

This fire clearly demonstrated the dangers of data center concentration.

Experts point out that the nation's core IT infrastructure needs to improve its structure, which relies on a single facility, and strengthen cloud backup and distributed storage systems.

Additionally, strengthening safety inspections for risk factors in computer rooms, such as lithium-ion batteries, has emerged as an urgent task.

This incident has once again confirmed the fact that “in a digital society, paralysis of IT infrastructure means paralysis of society.” There are also calls for a reduction in online services, but this is largely criticized as going against the times.

Experts agree that, “This fire should be used as a lesson to establish double and triple safety systems and comprehensively review the national IT infrastructure.”