The government launched an emergency on-site inspection on the 24th regarding KakaoTalk, which has caused service disruptions five times in the past five months. If violations of the corrective actions previously submitted by Kakao are found during the on-site inspection, the government may take additional measures such as imposing fines.
According to the National Assembly and related authorities, the Ministry of Science and ICT began an inspection of the communication disaster management plan around 10:30 a.m. at Kakao's Pangyo Ajit (headquarters) in Seongnam, Gyeonggi Province.
The Ministry of Science and ICT brought experts in software (SW), networks, and related fields to the on-site inspection to examine the cause of the KakaoTalk service disruption that occurred on the 20th, the recovery status, and measures to prevent recurrence, and plans to demand corrections for any deficiencies. The scheduled inspection is planned for one day, but if many shortcomings are found on-site, it may be extended by a day. The results of the on-site inspection are expected to be released in about two weeks.
This is the third time this year that the government has conducted an on-site inspection related to KakaoTalk. Previously, the Ministry of Science and ICT conducted on-site inspections on May 21 and 23 after KakaoTalk experienced three service disruptions between May 13 and 21.
According to materials submitted to Rep. Kim Jang-gyeom of the People Power Party, a member of the National Assembly's Science, Technology, Information and Broadcasting and Communications Committee, the causes of the disruptions identified during the on-site inspections were deleting existing files during a specific server file update (May 13), reflecting work on other servers during system function improvements (May 20), and proceeding with updates on other servers while the error causing the disruption remained unresolved (May 21).
Kakao normalized the service by blocking traffic at the Pangyo Internet Data Center (IDC) where the disruptions occurred and rerouting traffic to the Gasan and Anyang IDCs, activating service redundancy, and operating additional idle servers.
The Ministry of Science and ICT pointed out issues such as failure to conduct pre-tests before major tasks like code changes and program updates, inadequate work management control, and lack of emergency action plans for potential disruptions, and demanded corrective actions.
In response, Kakao stated in the corrective action report submitted on the 13th that it had completed establishing internal guidelines for pre-testing, supplementing crisis response manuals, specifying guidelines to ensure service stability, building an integrated monitoring system, thoroughly analyzing causes of disruptions and post-management, and preparing and thoroughly notifying users according to standards.
Kakao explained that the enhancement of the test environment, which is a corrective order, will be promoted until March next year, and the work management control system will be built by December and then further enhanced.
However, following the KakaoTalk PC version access disruption on July 18 and the transmission delay of KakaoTalk on mobile and PC versions on the 20th of this month, there are doubts about whether the corrective action requirements have been properly implemented.
The Ministry of Science and ICT stated in materials submitted to Rep. Kim's office that it plans to inspect the corrective actions submitted by Kakao, including the KakaoTalk sending disruption on the 20th, within this month and is considering additional measures if violations occur. Depending on the results of the on-site inspection, sanctions such as fines may be imposed. According to Article 40-4 of the Broadcasting and Communications Development Act, failure to comply with corrective orders can result in fines of up to 3% of sales (up to 0.5% for the first violation).
Rep. Kim said, "The fact that a disruption occurred again just one week after Kakao responded that corrective actions had been taken suggests that the corrective measures may have been insufficient," and added, "The Ministry of Science and ICT should thoroughly investigate both human and system aspects and take appropriate measures to prevent accidents that cause inconvenience to the public from recurring."
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