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South Korea is considered one of the most digitized countries in the world. What happens when the internet goes down has been shown during the weekend. A fire broke out in a cable tunnel in the center of the capital, Seoul, and the KT telecommunications group suffered numerous breakdowns. 210,000 households were affected. The internet outage has had serious consequences.
In stores and restaurants whose payment systems operate on the KT network, credit card devices have failed. Customers had to pay in cash. In many stores, music has ceased to function as streaming music services have been discontinued and many surveillance and security systems have stopped functioning. "It was like a modern dystopia," said student Lee Ah-in the Korea Times.
The pagers at the hospital did not work
Hospitals have also been affected: Internet-based computer networks and security systems have failed, writes the South Korean newspaper Hankyoreh. "For 24 hours we were unable to contact the national health insurance system, which resulted in delays in patient registration," Yonsei University Severance Hospital said.
KT Corp employees repair the infrastructure. (Photo: Yonhap)
A nurse in a hospital told the "Korea Herald" newspaper that doctors could not join because their phone at work was going through the relevant provider, KT. It was necessary to use an internal transmission system. "I thought someone might die because of this situation," said the nurse. In a distressed patient, she had wanted to call a doctor, but could not reach her and leave the patient alone. "That's why another person was walking in the hospital looking for a doctor available.The patient became more blue and I wanted to die," said the woman, who did not want to be named.
Woman died of a heart attack
The "Korea Herald" also reported that a woman had died of a heart attack because her husband had not been able to order an ambulance on time due to the power outage. The telephone network was not working. The man then ran into the street and asked for help from a stranger. When the ambulance arrived, the woman was already dead.
"I tried everything, but I could not save her," said the man at a local news portal. "If I could have made the call and the rescue team had arrived only five minutes earlier, we could have saved her." The incident showed how much a network failure could compromise the safety of people, said No Woong-rae of the Democratic Party "Korea Herald." "This was the worst example of a disaster. caused by the man. "
Another problem was that emergency warning systems had failed in some parts of the city. On Saturday, shortly after the fire, the Seoul Civil Protection Department attempted to send a message of warning and information to the citizens. These only arrived with users who used providers other than KT. Many KT customers did not know what was going on.
Risks of a digital society
Mobile phone operator KT told the Korea Times:
Nahm Kee-bom, a professor of urban sociology at Seoul University, said Nahm Kee-bom, a Hankyoreh newspaper.
South Korea has long been known as a highly interconnected country with high-speed Internet. However, experts warned that the government should be aware of the consequences of technological development and develop measures to deal with possible side effects and accidents.
"IT services can be considered as public goods such as gas and electricity, so there should be some kind of regulation to encourage or force the industry to spend a certain amount on security measures," he said. said Ahn Jong-joo, head of the Social Security Communication Center at the Korea Institute of Social Policy. ,
IT disturbances at SBB
In Switzerland too, there are still power outages or computer problems. SBB had recently experienced a major IT outage: in mid-November, a series of trains was canceled, resulting in delays, detours and disruptions in online timetables and electronic dashboards at train stations.
"All computer systems connected to the Internet can theoretically fail, be paralyzed or controlled by third parties," said Marc Ruef, expert in information technology, Zurich security company Scip AG. (Editors Tamedia)
Created: 27.11.2018, 19:53 hours
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