Which Countries Are Most Vulnerable to A Kill Switch?

Can instability in a foreign country disrupt your global network? That question is one again on the minds of the IT infrastructure community after Syria was disconnected from the Internet earlier this week. How hard is it to disconnect a country from the Web? Which countries are most vulnerable to this "kill switch" phenomenon?

Network monitoring specialist Renesys addresses these issues in a valuable blog post that looks at the global risk, handicapping the potential that a country could be unhooked from the Internet. It all comes down to infrastructure, who controls it, and the diversity of networks serving a nation. Here's an excerpt:

"So, could what happened to Egypt and Syria happen in your country? Hopefully not. But it's an important question that companies ask Renesys about all the time, as they decide which countries might reasonably host their new data centers. Next to Internet performance and stability, the political risks of Internet disconnection are starting to appear on due diligence checklists, as companies consider where to make their investments in global cloud infrastructure."

Renesys has a heat map of cutoff risk. Check it out at the Renesys blog.