This time, it’s the Public Procurement Service: Government network crashes for the third time in a week

Promoting a digital government: Is it really safe? Citizens look at the display at the 2023 Republic of Korea Government Expo at BEXCO, Busan on the morning of November 23. The Ministry of the Interior and Safety and the Presidential Committee on the Digital Platform Government held the exhibit to introduce the status of the digital platform government, but the purpose has faded due to a series of crashes in the government network. Yonhap News

This time, the Public Procurement Service network shut down. The government explained it was caused by an error that occurred due to a sudden flood of traffic from overseas, but they have come under fire for the third state network failure in less than a week since the Saeol local administration network crashed on November 17.

According to the Public Procurement Service and the Ministry of the Interior and Safety on November 23, for an hour from 9:19 a.m. to 10:20 a.m. Thursday, people could not log into the Korea ON-Line E-Procurement System, which handles various procurement affairs of the government. The system was installed by the Public Procurement Service, and the server was operated by the National Information Resources Service under the interior ministry.

“Attempts to log in to the E-Procurement System from an overseas IP suddenly surged this morning, and we believe the heavy traffic caused the delay in accessing the system,” said a representative of the National Information Resources Service. He further explained, “When the firewall blocked the IP in question, normal services resumed.” As for the possibility of hacking, he voiced doubts saying, “The traffic wasn’t heavy enough to crash the entire site” but added, “A more detailed investigation will be necessary.”

This was the fifth time this year that a government network crashed. In March, the court network shut down, followed by errors in the fourth-generation elementary, middle and high school education administration information system as soon as it opened in June. On November 17, errors began occurring in Government 24 and Saeol. On November 22, after the interior ministry announced that government networks were running smoothly, problems occurred in the system that issues resident registration cards.

A string of failures has occurred in various government networks, but the government has not been able to identify the cause and present solutions. In the case of Saeol, the government only said that it was caused by problems in the network equipment and has not clearly explained why the equipment malfunctioned and why the duplexing equipment failed to function properly. As for the problems in the resident registration system and the procurement system, the government only mentioned a flood of traffic, without identifying the cause.

Some argue that the series of crashes were the result of pushing back investment to ensure stable systems, which is the foundation of a digital powerhouse. The E-Procurement System was built in 2002, and people have been pointing out problems due to the old system, such as the slow process speed and inconvenient search function. Saeol opened in 2007, but the government has yet to secure a budget for the next-generation system.

Kim Hyoung-joong, a professor at Korea University’s School of Cybersecurity said, “Accidents (in government networks) continue to occur, and I think Heinrich’s Law is at work,” and argued, “If this adds up, it could lead to a major accident. I think we should be alert when viewing this issue.”

The government’s incompetent response and lax awareness have also come under fire. In a questioning at the parliamentary Public Administration and Security Committee Thursday, lawmakers criticized the government saying, “The interior ministry ignores the issue after a problem occurs,” and “To develop and operate a computer system, you have to know the details, but they outsourced all the computer tasks.” Minister of the Interior and Safety Lee Sang-min left for the United Kingdom on November 21 to accompany President Yoon Suk-yeol on his overseas trip and will return on Friday. He is scheduled to preside over a task force meeting to discuss measures on the administrative network after his return.