Seoul: The National Intelligence Service (NIS) on Monday increased the country's cyber alert level to "caution" after a major outage of public online services caused by last week's fire at the state data management agency.

According to Yonhap News Agency, the second-level alert was implemented at 6 p.m., driven by concerns over potential cyber attacks exploiting the government administrative system outage. The fire, which occurred at the National Information Resources Service in Daejeon, about 140 kilometers south of Seoul, resulted in the suspension of hundreds of public administration systems.

The NIS's decision to elevate the cyber alert level underscores the vulnerability of public systems to external threats, especially when critical infrastructure is compromised. The move aims to bolster defenses and mitigate risks associated with potential cyber intrusions during the recovery period.

Authorities are working to restore affected services, while also implementing enhanced security measures to prevent further disruptions. The situation remains under close observation as efforts to reinforce the integrity of the national cyber infrastructure continue.