The government raised its digital crisis alert level from "attention" to "caution" following last week’s fire at the National Information Resources Service.

The National Intelligence Service announced Monday through the National Cyber Security Center that the altered alert level would take effect at 6 p.m. the same day, as hundreds of government services remain at a standstill and concerns grow that hackers could exploit the instability.

Authorities cited the need for heightened monitoring ahead of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Gyeongju next month.

The National Intelligence Service ordered administrative agencies to follow digital crisis manuals and report any unusual network activity to the National Cyber Security Center.

The blaze impacted more than 600 administrative systems, destroying 96 servers, and the government expects full restoration to take about four weeks.

The protracted outage has raised fears of security gaps during the upcoming Chuseok holiday.