Servers remain beside batteries
At a parliamentary audit of the Korea Human Resource Development Institute for Health and Welfare on October 22, People Power Party lawmaker Lee Dal-hee of the National Assembly's Health and Welfare Committee said the institute's server room still had servers beside ternary lithium-ion batteries a year after the National Information Resources Service fire, and urged immediate corrective action.
The September 2025 fire at the National Information Resources Service was understood to have started in the ternary lithium-ion batteries of an uninterruptible power supply (UPS) in the server room. Batteries installed to supply power to servers during outages instead became the source of the fire.
The fire halted 709 government administrative systems, and recovery took 95 days. Lee described it as a devastating incident that demonstrated how a battery fire could immediately disrupt national computer systems if servers and batteries were kept in the same space.
However, checks with the institute confirmed that its server room still used ternary batteries and that the UPS and batteries were installed immediately beside the servers.
Separation standards and corrective action
The Ministry of the Interior and Safety's notice, “Standards for the Integration of Information Resources at Administrative and Public Institutions,” makes separating UPS equipment from computing equipment and installing lithium-ion batteries in a separate space mandatory regardless of facility grade. It also recommends that existing facilities meet these standards. Nevertheless, the issue remained uncorrected a year after the fire, according to the criticism.
Addressing institute president Eun Min-su, Lee said, “As we saw in last year's National Information Resources Service fire, if servers and batteries are side by side, both will inevitably be lost when a fire breaks out.” Lee added, “Yet the institute's servers are still placed alongside them. This must be corrected to ensure separation, whether on different floors or in different buildings.”
When Eun replied to the effect that the institute would secure funding and take action, Lee urged countermeasures, saying, “Disasters come without warning,” and, “Please make sure corrective action is taken.”
Original Korean article: kpanews.co.kr
English brief by Korea Wind Intelligence, koreawindintel.com
