When does website blocking actually work?

This study evaluates the effectiveness of website blocking as a cybersecurity control to mitigate copyright infringement, focusing on Southeast Asia's diverse legal and technological environments. Using a quasi-experimental design during the COVID-19 pandemic, this research examines the impact of website blocking measures in Indonesia, Vietnam, Malaysia, and Singapore. For the first time, the findings reveal that swift, systematic website blocking—exemplified by Indonesia—serves as an effective cybersecurity control, significantly reducing access to infringing content while redirecting traffic toward legitimate platforms. Jurisdictions with procedural delays and inconsistent enforcement, however, demonstrate limited efficacy, highlighting the need for dynamic responses to evolving threats such as domain hopping and proxy servers. The findings inform broader cybersecurity applications like network segmentation, access control, and threat intelligence. This work links traditional copyright enforcement to proactive incident detection and response strategies, providing insights into broader applications for cybersecurity, such as network segmentation, access control, and threat intelligence.