A devastating fire at the National Information Resources Service (NIRS) in Daejeon has resulted in the loss of work-related personal data for approximately 750,000 civil servants, and restoration now appears impossible.

According to the Ministry of the Interior and Safety on October 1, the blaze broke out in Computer Room 7-1 on the fifth floor of the NIRS Daejeon facility on September 26, incinerating 96 core government information systems. Among the affected systems was G-Drive, a cloud-based platform used by officials across central government ministries for storing documents and data.

Each public official received approximately 30GB of storage space on G-Drive, primarily for working documents they generated or obtained. However, given that G-Drive was designed for high capacity but low performance—and lacked external backup support—virtually all data lost in the fire is considered irretrievable.

Since 2018, the ministry has mandated storing official work files not on local PCs, but exclusively on G-Drive, according to the 'G-Drive Usage Guidelines.' This directive led to varying degrees of G-Drive dependence across ministries, resulting in widely differing levels of impact.

The Ministry of Personnel Management found itself particularly hard-hit. In response to past data breaches, it had shifted all document storage solely to G-Drive, concentrating losses during the fire. By contrast, the Office for Government Policy Coordination’s lighter use of G-Drive meant a lower level of damage.

“The extent of G-Drive use varies depending on an agency’s operations,” said one central government official. “But the data loss has interrupted some work processes.”

While official signed documents are also saved in the Onnara administrative system, allowing for partial restoration, the government clarified that photographs, reports, and reference materials saved individually are likely lost for good. Lim Jeonggyu, Director of Public Services at the Ministry of the Interior and Safety, said, “Because G-Drive has no backup, files have been entirely lost and are deemed unrecoverable.”

Authorities are currently working to transfer the destroyed systems to the NIRS Daegu Center for recovery. So far, the overall restoration progress stands at just 15.6%. Other zones in the data center’s computer rooms will be revived after dust removal and cleaning. Full restoration of completely burned systems is expected to take at least one month.

Meanwhile, some ministries are using alternative channels—emails, official documents, and printed files—to try to reconstruct lost data.

Note “This article was translated from the original Korean version using AI assistance, and subsequently edited by a native-speaking journalist.”

Photo=Yonhap News