On the 8th, the Ministry of Science and ICT announced that after expert review of authentication failures in major services of Google LLC (hereinafter referred to as’Google’) that occurred in December of last year, it has secured service stability and improved measures to protect users in accordance with Article 22-7 of the Telecommunications Business Act. Revealed.
From 20:30 on December 14, last year, for about an hour, many Google services that require login such as YouTube, Gmail, Play Store (App Market), Drive (Cloud), document tools, maps, etc. are disrupted worldwide. happened.
Accordingly, the Ministry of Science and ICT requested data on the cause of service failure and action plan from Google twice on the 15th and 31st of the same month in accordance with the Telecommunications Business Act, and the submitted data were based on the expert review group meeting and Google’s opinion statement. We reviewed and prepared measures for action.
What is the cause of Google’s failure?
In October 2020, Google completed the work without allocating storage space during maintenance of the’user authentication system’ that handles user login requests. This means that the storage space setting value must be entered as an appropriate capacity by software, but it was incorrectly entered as ‘0’. The maintenance result was applied 45 days later for stability, so no failure occurred immediately. After that, on the 14th day of 20.12.14, after 45 days after the maintenance work result was reflected, the’user authentication system’ was not actually allocated storage space, and this made it impossible to process the user’s login request, requiring login Google’s services were disrupted.
Google urgently allocates storage space to the’user authentication system’ and restores the service within about 50 minutes, but it notified the failure in English mainly through Twitter and dashboard. Google said on January 22 that when it made a statement of its opinion, it has not yet received any claims related to disability compensation worldwide.
As a result of comprehensive review of these matters, the Ministry of Science and ICT showed that Google recovered in about 50 minutes from the first failure, but did not recognize the wrong setting value for 45 days, and actively provided Korean guidance for tens of millions of domestic users. It was judged that the point that was not achieved was insufficient, and this action plan was prepared.
■ Related to securing service stability = In order to prevent the recurrence of the same failure, it was decided to systematically improve the system so that incorrect setting values can be detected in advance, and to apply the existing space recycling technology so that the’user authentication system’ can operate normally even when the storage space is exceeded.
In addition, the Ministry of Science and ICT re-examined all measures to secure service stability measures such as facility pre-inspection, server multiplexing, and content transmission volume optimization as stipulated in the’Enforcement Decree of the Telecommunications Business Act Article 30-8 (2) No. 1′. (Article 30-8, Paragraph 2, Item 4)’, including the purpose of the law and measures to prevent recurrence, the guidelines to be prepared by itself were improved, and then notified to the Ministry of Science and ICT.
■ User protection related = If similar problems such as disability occur in the future, the company decided to notify the disability-related fact in Korean through Google Korea’s blog, Facebook, and Twitter, and at the same time inform the Korean media. In order to process user requirements, we added a’Contact Domestic Agent’ function that allows you to inquire in Korean using Google’s domestic agent (Transmos Korea Co., Ltd.) designated in January. It was decided below.
In addition, it was recommended to continuously seek ways to notify users more quickly and in a user-friendly way.
Google will continue to actively cooperate to secure the stability of additional communication services by participating in discussions on preparing detailed guidelines for service stability of the Ministry of Science and ICT.
OTT service’Wave’ failure that occurred on January 27, plans to review by receiving related data on 5 days
On the other hand, the Ministry of Science and ICT received data on the facts and measures related to failures such as some VOD interruption and content mixing phenomenon of Content Wave’s OTT service’Wave’, which occurred on the 27th of last month, and reviewed with experts. I plan to proceed.
Communication Policy Officer Hong Jin-bae of the Ministry of Science and ICT said, “The revision of the Telecommunications Business Act last year has secured an institutional foundation to protect users of additional communication services, and as the first case, we were able to take measures to strengthen and improve user protection against this Google’s failure.” He said, “In order to provide complete and high-quality Internet service to users, the role of not only key communication service providers but also value-added communication service providers is important, so we continue to provide institutional support such as establishing detailed guidelines so that convenient and stable additional communication services can be provided in the future. I will promote it.”
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