"MS-Originated IT Crisis, 10 Korean Companies Affected... No Damage to 3 Telecom Giants and Naver-Kakao (Comprehensive)"

Ministry of Science and ICT Forms Emergency Response Team with KISA
No Issues at 26 Major Telecom and Portal Sites

On the 19th (local time), a passenger is looking at a malfunctioning information screen at Delhi International Airport in New Delhi, India. Photo by EPA Yonhap News

On the 19th, the Ministry of Science and ICT formed an emergency response team to urgently address the disruption in Microsoft (MS)'s domestic cloud services.

The Ministry of Science and ICT announced that it is working with Microsoft Korea to identify the exact cause and extent of the damage caused by the domestic cloud service outage.

The incident was investigated to be primarily caused by the security platform 'CrowdStrike'.

Around 4 p.m. that day, when the security software distributed by CrowdStrike was updated to the latest version, a problem occurred causing Windows systems to shut down abnormally (blue screen).

Normally, this software operates connected to the headquarters system based on the cloud (Azure) provided by MS. However, since the update was performed on a server or PC basis, this incident occurred.

The Ministry of Science and ICT and the Korea Internet & Security Agency (KISA) formed an emergency response team and are strengthening monitoring against potential cyberattacks related to this issue.

Additionally, an emergency measure to delete the problematic update file was announced on the BohoNara & KrCERT/CC website.

Currently, damage has been confirmed at 10 domestic companies, and system recovery is either underway or completed.

Among the 26 major telecommunications operators obligated to report disasters and outages under the Framework Act on Telecommunications Development, no damage occurred due to this incident.

The 26 companies include 11 fixed-line telecommunications companies (SK Telecom, KT, LG Uplus, etc.), 7 value-added telecommunications companies (Naver, Kakao, Google, etc.), and 8 data centers (SK Broadband, Naver Cloud, etc.).