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Message: <blockquote data-quote="EzekielRaiden" data-source="post: 8538190" data-attributes="member: 6790260">Very likely, though I don't know the specific details of the Iraq situation. Much internet infrastructure is a mix of both public and private stuff, due to both its origin (university+military stuff) and the size and complexity of its installation.Generally the ways to fight back are (a) track as many IPs as you can and either find a way in software to block them or as you say physically shut them off, (b) attempt to infiltrate the attacking network to subvert it (this was used a few years ago, a formerly-less-wholesome hacker found the kill switch for a very dangerous piece of malware and triggered it), or (c) attempt to isolate your own network from the problem stuff, e.g. changing identifiers or the like so that legitimate traffic knows where to go but the illegitimate does not (difficult to pull off for large entities; try selling Google on the idea that they should switch to a different domain name!) A is easy (well, relatively) but slow/not guaranteed to solve the problem, especially if the attacker is tenacious and able to adapt. B offers no guarantee of results but is likely to be extremely effective when it works. C, as noted, is not really effective for large services and basically just works to keep the "small" stuff alive.If the attacker is an actual corporate entity, they definitely have some potential to cause a lot of damage. Doubly so if they have any intersection with information security, software products, or hardware/maintenance. It's kind of amazing the damage a planned attack can do if the attackers can subvert even a small amount of normal precautions.There's a video from Tom Scott I think you'd appreciate talking about a hypothetical situation where a high-level Google administrator literally turns off ALL security checks for Google accounts--you could enter any password you liked and it would log you in. It's a pretty interesting scenario and at least tangentially related to what you're looking into. Afraid I don't have a link (and am on phone so it'd be hard to get one).</blockquote>

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