NIS raises nat'l cyber alert level to 'caution' amid public service outage
A sign notifies issues with the entrance system to the government complex in central Seoul, Monday. Yonhap
The National Intelligence Service (NIS) on Monday raised the country's cyber alert level by one notch to "caution" in the wake of a major outage of public online services due to last week's fire at the state data management agency.
The second-level alert of a four-tier system took effect as of 6 p.m. due to concerns of possible cyber attacks taking advantage of the government administrative system outage, according to the NIS.
Hundreds of public administration systems have been suspended due to Friday's fire at the National Information Resources Service in Daejeon, about 140 kilometers south of Seoul.
The NIS also cited the need to strengthen monitoring of cyber threats ahead of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit set to open in the southeastern city of Gyeongju on Oct. 31.
Under the "caution" alert, government agencies must immediately notify cyber threats or network paralysis to the National Cyber Security Center or the Office of National Security once detected.
The government expects the relocation of 96 systems burned down from the fire to another data center located in the southeastern city of Daegu to take about four weeks.