But only once you ' re sure it ' s an attack , not just lots of ip hits on your website . Even then , you try to mitigate it first . It ' s rare that you can react in realtime to an IT attack , so tools and best practice have developed so you don ' t need to . With some of the more competent systems AWS and Azure come to mind , DDOS just isn ' t possible . BTW , I still haven ' t seen evidence of an actual attack . In fact , they ' ve been walking back the statement since it happened . If I had to guess , someone noticed nonAustralian IP blocks hitting the servers , reported it up the chain as unusual activity and , before they had time to actually investigate it , someone at the top with political skin in the game with all the census controversy going in at the tone interpreted it as an attack and told them to pull the plug . Then they covered up the stupidity with lies and interpretations of what happened . Happens with middle management all the time .