Unlicensed subcontractors caused fire at South Korea's state data center, audit finds

SEOUL, Sept. 7 (Yonhap) -- Unlicensed firms were subcontracted to carry out a battery replacement project at the state data center and caused a fire that crippled the government's online administrative services last year, the Board of Audit and Inspection (BAI) said Monday.

The fire at the National Information Resources Service broke out on Sept. 26, damaging servers and crippling key online administrative systems, such as government websites and local community center systems, across the country. It took 95 days to fully normalize these services.

According to the BAI audit, the original contractor for the battery replacement project hired another company, which in turn subcontracted the project to the two unlicensed firms in question. The two firms carried out the work without safety measures, such as turning off power to the battery rack.

The data center had earlier received a report from the original contractor that outside personnel would be put to work, but failed to check whether the firms held appropriate licenses and are registered with the government, according to the findings.

The audit also found that the data center had earlier rejected a request for fire safety inspections.

Five months before the fire, the National Fire Agency decided to conduct safety inspections of the data center facilities, but an official of the data center turned down the request, citing that the center's computer server rooms were a security zone.

Even after the fire started, the center failed to take proper measures to prevent it from spreading and even asked firefighters not to spray water on the equipment, citing concerns that it could damage the computer network.

The data center had earlier estimated the damage from the fire at 59.7 billion won (US$44.4 million), but the BAI said the actual damage amounted to 351.1 billion won, including social costs.