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Fire destroys S. Korean government's cloud storage system, no backups available

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Re: Fire destroys S. Korean government's cloud storage system, no backups available

#421

Post by pezezin »

ookblah wrote: post #133

after the kakao fire incident and now this i struggle to understand how they got so advanced in other areas. this is like amateur hour level shit.

It is the same in Japan. They are really good for hardware and other "physical" engineering disciplines, but they are terrible when it comes to software and general IT stuff.

Seriously, I work here as an IT guy and I can't stop wondering how they could become so advance in other areas and stay so backwards in anything software-related except videogames.

Re: Fire destroys S. Korean government's cloud storage system, no backups available

#422

Post by ants_everywhere »

throwaway2037 wrote: post #372

At the very bottom of the article, I see this notice: > This article was originally written in Korean and translated by a bilingual reporter with the help of generative AI tools. It was then edited by a native English-speaking editor. All AI-assisted translations are reviewed and refined by our newsroom. I like that. It is direct and honest. I'm fine with people using LLMs for natural language related work, as long a…

> I'm fine with people using LLMs for natural language related work

phew I'm relieved you're okay with people using modern tools to get their job done

Re: Fire destroys S. Korean government's cloud storage system, no backups available

#423

Post by makeitdouble »

lucb1e wrote: post #380
makeitdouble wrote: post #357

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A foreign gov getting all your security researchers and staff's personal info with their family and tax and medical records doesn't sound great. That's just from the top of my head. Exploiting such a trove of data doesn't sound complicated.

Yeah that ignores about two thirds of my point, including that it would never get to the "Exploiting such a trove of data doesn't sound complicated" stage with a higher probability than storing it within one's own territory

I'm in agreement with your second point, I think moving data in the country isn't trivial either and requires a pretty strong system. I just don't have much to say on that side, so didn't comment on it.

Re: Fire destroys S. Korean government's cloud storage system, no backups available

#424

Post by exogenousdata »

Imustaskforhelp wrote: post #356
jn78 wrote: post #80

https://phrack.org/issues/72/7_md#article

Ohh side note but this was the journalist group which was blocked by proton The timing as well is very suspicious and I think that there can be a lot of discussion about this Right now, I am wondering about the name most tbh which might seem silly but "APT down - The North Korean files" It seems that APT means in this case advanced persistent threat but I am not sure what they mean by Apt Down, like the fact that it…

“APT Down” is likely a reference to a popular Korean drinking game.

https://www.thetakeout.com/1789352/korea-apt-drinking-game-r...

Re: Fire destroys S. Korean government's cloud storage system, no backups available

#425

Post by naruhodo »

danudey wrote: post #399
jftr wrote: post #358

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Phrack's timeline may read like it, but it wasn't an onsite inspection due to hacking, but a scheduled maintenance to replace the overdue UPS, hence battery-touching involved. Even the image they linked just says "scheduled maintenance."

So right after the investigation was announced, they suddenly scheduled a UPS battery replacement which happened to start a fire big enough to destroy the entire data centre and all data or evidence? Yeah, that's way less suspicious, thanks for clearing that up.

My mind initially went to a government cover-up, but then:

> 27th of September 2025, The fire is believed to have been caused while replacing Lithium-ion batteries. The batteries were manufactured by LG, the parent company of LG Uplus (the one that got hacked by the APT).

Could the battery firmware have been sabotaged by the hacker to start the fire?

Re: Fire destroys S. Korean government's cloud storage system, no backups available

#427

Post by beefnugs »

throwaway2037 wrote: post #372

At the very bottom of the article, I see this notice: > This article was originally written in Korean and translated by a bilingual reporter with the help of generative AI tools. It was then edited by a native English-speaking editor. All AI-assisted translations are reviewed and refined by our newsroom. I like that. It is direct and honest. I'm fine with people using LLMs for natural language related work, as long a…

So just a blanket message at the bottom of the page "anything and everyone you read here might be total bullshit"

Re: Fire destroys S. Korean government's cloud storage system, no backups available

#428

Post by bell-cot »

crmd wrote: post #208

I would love to know how a fire of this magnitude could happen in a modern data center.

Assume the PHB's who wouldn't spring for off-site backups (vs. excuses are "free") also wouldn't spring for fire walls, decently-trained staff, or other basics of physical security.

Re: Fire destroys S. Korean government's cloud storage system, no backups available

#429

Post by lettergram »

The irony -- so not only was their system hacked ("hosted onsite"), but then it was also burned down onsite with no backups.

In other words.. there was no point in the extra security of being onsite AND the risks of being onsite single failure point destroyed any evidence.

Pretty much what I'd expect tbh, but no remote backup is insane.

Re: Fire destroys S. Korean government's cloud storage system, no backups available

#430

Post by gundmc »

vbezhenar wrote: post #320
Ekaros wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When you start to do math, hard drive are cheap when you go for capacity and not performance. 0.00099*1000 is 0.99. So about 12$ a year. Now extrapolate something like 5 year period or 10 year period. And you get to 60 to 120$ for TB. Even at 3 to 5x redundancy those numbers start to add up.

S3 does not spend 3x drives to provide redundancy. Probably 20% more drives or something like that. They split data to chunks and use erasure coding to store them in multiple drives with little overhead.

AFAIK geo-replication between regions _does_ replicate the entire dataset. It sounds like you're describing RAID configurations, which are common ways to provide redundancy and increased performance within a given disk array. They definitely do that too, but within a zone
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