infospace-bench/infospaces/patterns-of-it-securita-architecture/artifacts/entities/pattern-kill-switch-tenant-freeze.md

Pattern: Kill Switch / Tenant Freeze

Status: seed Readiness target: RL3 production Primary owners: NetKingdom, product repos, Railiance platform Genesis family: Detection and response

Problem

Operators need a fast containment mechanism when a tenant, app, token, or integration appears compromised or abusive.

Context

Use this pattern for tenant compromise, runaway automation, abusive API usage, malicious uploads, credential exposure, or legal/security holds.

Forces

• Containment must be fast.
• Freezing a tenant can be high impact.
• Actions need scope, reason, approval, and audit.
• Recovery must be predictable and reversible where possible.

Solution

Provide controlled kill-switch or tenant-freeze states that can block login, API access, background jobs, credential vending, uploads, or data mutation according to scoped policy.

Verification

• Freeze actions take effect across API, jobs, credentials, and uploads.
• Scope and reason are recorded.
• Tenant-visible communication rules are defined.
• Unfreeze requires authorized review and audit.

Related Patterns

• Tenant Isolation.
• Token Revocation Sweep.
• Incident Runbook Library.
• Central Audit Ledger.