Minister Im Hye-sook Urges KT to Quickly Discuss Compensation Standards (Comprehensive)

Visit to Gwacheon KT Network Control Center
Orders for Recurrence Prevention and User Protection Measures
Communication Disaster Roaming Policy Not Working
Director Hong Jin-bae "KT Also Recognizes Seriousness"

Minister Lim Hye-sook of the Ministry of Science and ICT visited the KT Network Control Center in Gwacheon on the afternoon of the 26th and urged KT to promptly establish specific compensation standards. Photo by Ministry of Science and ICT

[Asia Economy Reporter Cha Min-young] On the morning of the 25th, a nationwide wired and wireless internet network outage occurred at KT. In response, the Ministry of Science and ICT, the competent authority, has ordered swift measures to prevent recurrence and compensation plans for the public. They also urged the prompt preparation of compensation plans by social class, especially since small business owners and self-employed individuals, who were severely affected by COVID-19, suffered damages.

Demand for Swift Compensation Plans by Social Class

On the afternoon of the 26th, Minister Lim Hye-sook of the Ministry of Science and ICT visited the KT Network Control Center in Gwacheon to inspect the progress of the investigation into the cause of the outage and urged KT to prepare countermeasures.

After visiting the control center, Minister Lim told reporters, "We caused a great deal of inconvenience to the public, and many people were affected, so we are taking the situation very seriously." She added, "We urged KT to come up with measures to prevent recurrence and protect users. I believe KT will carefully discuss the compensation aspect as well."

The Ministry of Science and ICT has formed a 'Broadcasting and Telecommunications Disaster Response Situation Room' led by the Information Security Network Policy Officer as the situation room chief, following the Information and Communications Incident Crisis Management Manual, to verify whether full recovery has been achieved. The government has also formed its own 'Accident Cause Analysis Team.' They are discussing recurrence prevention measures based on expert opinions and continue to request necessary data from KT.

The specific compensation criteria and targets will be reviewed later by the Ministry of Science and ICT based on KT's internally prepared proposal. Further investigation into the scale of damages is also needed. Minister Lim said, "We have not discussed the compensation criteria in detail. I urged KT to promptly start discussing that part from now on."

Hong Jin-bae, Director of the Information Security Network Policy Office, said, "The minister ordered that since there are damages across various social classes, they should not delay too long until a comprehensive compensation plan is prepared but quickly establish swift compensation plans even by social class." He added, "KT is also aware of the seriousness of the situation and is holding meetings led by CEO Koo Hyun-mo."

Possibility of sanctions against KT itself remains open. Director Hong said, "Since the accident investigation is still ongoing, follow-up measures will be reviewed after the analysis is complete." He added, "We need to review relevant laws and other factors, so it is premature to make any assumptions at this point."

Communication Disaster Roaming Service Did Not Operate

There is also an issue that the disaster roaming service policy, created during the 2018 KT Azyeon exchange fire, did not function properly. The Ministry of Science and ICT's communication disaster prevention measures announced at that time included provisions to allow communication services to be provided via other telecom operators if a specific operator's network is paralyzed. Upon issuance of a communication disaster alert → according to government instructions, LTE and 5G customers of the affected telecom operator automatically roam onto other operators' networks → enabling voice calls, text messages, wireless payments, and internet services such as KakaoTalk.

Minister Lim explained, "The roaming service part is at the edge of the network, the access network segment, where such rules were established. This time, however, the router path setting error spread to the core network and caused errors throughout the core network, so the measures created during the Azyeon exchange incident did not work."

She added, "At that time, the measures were for the access network, the edge of the network, but this time the error spread to the core network, causing problems. I believe measures will be prepared to prevent such issues from happening again in the future."

Director Hong said, "Currently, disaster roaming measures are for the access layer, and considering the core network would be a very large-scale measure. A comprehensive plan will require more time and government consideration because the core network has never been a problem before."

KT CEO Koo Hyun-mo Bowed His Head

[Image source=Yonhap News]

KT's nationwide wired and wireless internet network was paralyzed for about 40 to 85 minutes starting around 11:20 a.m. the previous day. KT initially suspected a 'large-scale DDoS attack' as the cause but corrected it to a 'routing (network path setting) error' within just over two hours. KT activated its crisis management committee and began sequential system recovery around noon, but some areas continued to experience unstable internet connections until the following morning.

KT CEO Koo Hyun-mo issued an apology statement that afternoon, saying, "I sincerely apologize to customers who experienced inconvenience due to the nationwide internet outage yesterday." He explained, "Initially, traffic overload led us to suspect an external DDoS attack, but it was confirmed that the cause was a network path setting error that occurred during the replacement of the latest equipment for service enhancement." He promised to cooperate sincerely with the government investigation and to prepare recurrence prevention and compensation plans.

The scale of compensation is expected to be significantly influenced by KT's internal decisions, as it is based on the operator's own terms of service. According to KT's terms, customers subscribed to mobile phone, high-speed internet, IPTV, and other services must be compensated if they cannot use the service continuously for more than three hours without their own fault. However, this incident officially lasted about 1 hour and 25 minutes. It is also difficult to prove a direct causal relationship for damages suffered by self-employed individuals and others. Since outage time is calculated on a daily basis, compensation amounts are minimal.

Meanwhile, the Ministry of Science and ICT is investigating the possibility of a cyberattack separately from KT's internal investigation results. Director Hong said, "We cannot rely solely on KT's statements, so we are conducting an investigation based on evidence." He explained, "If it is a cyberattack, the investigation period could be quite long, but if it is due to an error, the period could be shorter."