I don't want to be a conspiracy theorist but if anyone has the power to remotely brick a miner it would be Bitmain, not a pool.
Can you elaborate on this please. I am no expert, but on it's face it would seem that the easiest way to do this would be through a software change. As previously stated, the drop in hashrate was across the entire Saia network. Possibly GPU's as well. Maybe mass paranoia is setting in.....