South Korea’ digital services seems dead after data center fire

South Korea's online public services struggles to revive after a server room fire has crippled the entire system, with less than 10% restored days later, exposing critical vulnerabilities in the nation's digital infrastructure and prompting a presidential apology.

Government bodies worked to restore its digital government services on Monday, September 29, 2025 after a data centre fire disabled hundreds of public systems, highlighting critical vulnerabilities in one of the world's most wired nations.

The catastrophic blaze broke out during routine maintenance on Friday, September 26, 2025 at the state-run National Information Resources Service in Daejeon, which hosts the government's primary data centre.

Safety Minister Yun Ho-jung acknowledged the slow recovery process but noted that key services including the Government24 portal and financial systems run by Korea Post were gradually coming back online.

President Lee Jae Myung has apologized for the widespread disruption, expressing surprise that the government lacked adequate backup systems despite similar service outages occurring in 2023.

The disruption has impacted a wide range of agencies including police, fire, and customs authorities, with the Safety Ministry's own website among those remaining inaccessible.

Authorities have managed to bring back only 62 of the 647 affected systems, leaving most government websites and services offline.