Personnel Action Taken Against NIRS Director and Ministry Official Over National Network Paralysis

It has been confirmed that, in connection with the effective paralysis of the national computer network caused by the fire at the National Information Resources Service (NIRS) in September this year, both the Director of the National Information Resources Service and the Chief Officer for Digital Government at the Ministry of the Interior and Safety have been placed on standby duty.

Jaeyong Lee, Director of the National Information Resources Service (right), is answering reporters' questions at the Central Disaster and Safety Countermeasures Headquarters briefing on the fire incident of the administrative information system of the National Information Resources Service held at the Public Briefing Room of the Civil Service Building, Government Complex Sejong on September 29. On the left is Yongseok Lee, Director of the Digital Government Innovation Office. Photo by Yonhap News Agency

According to the government on November 29, the Ministry of the Interior and Safety recently placed Jaeyong Lee, Director of the NIRS, on standby duty at headquarters. Lee, who was appointed as Director of the NIRS in May 2023 for a three-year term as a senior official, faced intense calls for accountability as the head of the agency after a fire broke out in the data center on the fifth floor of the NIRS in September this year, causing 709 government administrative information systems to go offline.

Investigations found that the NIRS fire occurred when workers were relocating lithium-ion batteries connected to the uninterruptible power supply (UPS) main unit without disconnecting most of the battery power.

It is known that the Ministry of the Interior and Safety took personnel measures after Lee was booked by the police, along with three other employees, on charges of professional negligence resulting in fire. In November 2023, during his first year in office, Lee was also at the center of a major government administrative network outage caused by faulty network equipment at the NIRS.

The Ministry of the Interior and Safety also placed Yongseok Lee, Director of the Digital Government Innovation Office, who oversaw digital government work such as the operation of government administrative information systems, on standby duty along with Director Lee.

The Ministry recently reorganized the Digital Government Innovation Office into the Artificial Intelligence (AI) Government Office and placed Director Lee on standby, but has not yet appointed a successor. It is reported that the ministry is searching for a new candidate to serve as the first head of the AI Government Office.

However, both Director Lee and Director Yongseok Lee reportedly offered to resign during the process of handling the network paralysis incident, but their resignations were not accepted.

Meanwhile, most of the 709 administrative information systems that went offline due to the NIRS fire have been restored.As of the previous day, 700 out of the total 709 systems had resumed operation, resulting in a recovery rate of 98.7%.