New data unveils record-high
government-directed Internet shutdowns, a rise in malicious
traffic, and cyberattacks targeting the Gambling and Gaming
industries
Cloudflare, Inc. (NYSE: NET), the leading connectivity cloud
company, today published its fifth annual Year in Review, exploring
global Internet insights and security trends during 2024,
accompanied by a deeper dive on the most popular Internet
services.
The Internet is the cornerstone of global connection, providing
access to the critical information and services that power our
daily lives. This dependency on the Internet has made it the
backbone of today’s society – from helping first responders save
lives, allowing communities to connect with elected officials and
register to vote or supporting global digital economies.
Cloudflare’s 2024 Year in Review underscores how every year, as
more people and devices connect to the Internet, global traffic
surges (up 17% YoY), generating new trends that showcase our global
reliance on its capabilities.
“We rely on the Internet almost constantly, yet many still see
it merely as a collection of web pages. But the Internet is
everywhere, woven throughout almost all of the daily activities of
modern life – how we interact and connect on social media, use our
smart refrigerators and vacuums, travel from one place to another
through rideshare apps, connect to our banks and more,” said
Matthew Prince, CEO and co-founder at Cloudflare. “All of these
interactions we often take for granted, behind the scenes, are
connected to the Internet in one way or another, with a huge
percentage running through Cloudflare’s network every second of
every day. And as one of the largest in the world, Cloudflare’s
global network has an unmatched comprehensive view into usage, and
overall quality and connectivity across the web.”
With its Year in Review report, Cloudflare aims to share key
data insights about the changing Internet landscape to help keep
the online world more informed, resilient and secure. Some of the
biggest highlights of 2024 include:
- Most Popular Internet Service: Google came in first for
the third year in a row, followed by Facebook (#2), Apple (#3) and
TikTok (#4) – unchanged from 2023. However, WhatsApp broke into the
top ten most popular services globally for the first time.
- Most Popular Generative AI Service: Codeium, Claude and
CoPilot were new entrants to the top ten most popular generative AI
services (#3, #5 and #7 respectively), while OpenAI held onto the
number one position for the second year in a row.
- Most Popular Gaming Services: Gaming consumers drove
Steam into the top five most popular services for the first time,
while Minecraft entered the top ten this year. Meanwhile, Roblox
ranked #1 for the fourth year in a row.
- Most Targeted Industry: Globally, the Gaming and
Gambling industry became the top target for threat actors,
overtaking the Finance sector, which was the most targeted category
in 2023. Notably, threats increased largely in the weeks leading up
to the Super Bowl in the United States.
- Internet Outages Observed: Over half of all global
Internet outages were a result of government directed shutdowns –
often in response to protests, civil unrest or even to prevent
cheating during exams – impacting countries like Mozambique, Iraq,
Syria, Bangladesh, Senegal, Pakistan and others.
- Malicious Traffic: The Internet has not become
significantly more dangerous over the past year, with about 6.5% of
all global traffic mitigated as potentially malicious – only a
slight increase from 2023.
- Most Aggressive AI Bots: AI bots and crawlers have been
in the news for voraciously consuming content. But while Bytespider
(ByteDance) and ClaudeBot (Anthropic) were the most active, both of
their overall traffic gradually declined over the course of the
year.
“Cloudflare Radar was launched in 2020 when we witnessed the
drastic impact the pandemic had on the way we interact with the
Internet, and the importance for those insights to be accessible to
anyone,” said David Belson, Head of Data Insight at Cloudflare.
“Our Year in Review is a part of Radar’s commitment to democratize
Cloudflare’s data, offering a window into Internet trends and
patterns for anyone to explore at their fingertips."
This data comes from Cloudflare Radar, a free tool that lets
anyone view global trends and insights across the Internet. Radar
is powered by data from Cloudflare’s global network (one of the
world’s largest, spanning 330+ cities in 120+ countries), and
aggregated and anonymized data from Cloudflare’s 1.1.1.1 public DNS
Resolver, widely used as a fast and private way to browse the
Internet.
To learn more about Cloudflare’s Year in Review, please check
out the resources below:
- Blog: Cloudflare 2024 Year in Review
- Blog: Most Popular Internet Services 2024
- 2024 Year in Review Microsite
About Cloudflare
Cloudflare, Inc. (NYSE: NET) is the leading connectivity cloud
company. It empowers organizations to make their employees,
applications and networks faster and more secure everywhere, while
reducing complexity and cost. Cloudflare’s connectivity cloud
delivers the most full-featured, unified platform of cloud-native
products and developer tools, so any organization can gain the
control they need to work, develop, and accelerate their
business.
Powered by one of the world’s largest and most interconnected
networks, Cloudflare blocks billions of threats online for its
customers every day. It is trusted by millions of organizations –
from the largest brands to entrepreneurs and small businesses to
nonprofits, humanitarian groups, and governments across the
globe.
Learn more about Cloudflare’s connectivity cloud at
cloudflare.com/connectivity-cloud. Learn more about the latest
Internet trends and insights at https://radar.cloudflare.com.
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Forward-Looking Statements
This press release contains forward-looking statements within
the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, as
amended, and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as
amended, which statements involve substantial risks and
uncertainties. In some cases, you can identify forward-looking
statements because they contain words such as “may,” “will,”
“should,” “expect,” “explore,” “plan,” “anticipate,” “could,”
“intend,” “target,” “project,” “contemplate,” “believe,”
“estimate,” “predict,” “potential,” or “continue,” or the negative
of these words, or other similar terms or expressions that concern
Cloudflare’s expectations, strategy, plans, or intentions. However,
not all forward-looking statements contain these identifying words.
Forward-looking statements expressed or implied in this press
release include, but are not limited to, statements regarding
Cloudflare’s global network, Cloudflare’s products and technology,
Cloudflare’s technological development, future operations, growth,
initiatives, or strategies, overall market trends, and comments
made by Cloudflare’s CEO and Head of Data Insight. Actual results
could differ materially from those stated or implied in
forward-looking statements due to a number of factors, including
but not limited to, risks detailed in Cloudflare’s filings with the
Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), including Cloudflare’s
Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q filed on November 7, 2024, as well as
other filings that Cloudflare may make from time to time with the
SEC.
The forward-looking statements made in this press release relate
only to events as of the date on which the statements are made.
Cloudflare undertakes no obligation to update any forward-looking
statements made in this press release to reflect events or
circumstances after the date of this press release or to reflect
new information or the occurrence of unanticipated events, except
as required by law. Cloudflare may not actually achieve the plans,
intentions, or expectations disclosed in Cloudflare’s
forward-looking statements, and you should not place undue reliance
on Cloudflare’s forward-looking statements.
© 2024 Cloudflare, Inc. All rights reserved. Cloudflare, the
Cloudflare logo, and other Cloudflare marks are trademarks and/or
registered trademarks of Cloudflare, Inc. in the U.S. and other
jurisdictions. All other marks and names referenced herein may be
trademarks of their respective owners.
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version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20241209854894/en/
Cloudflare, Inc. Daniella Vallurupalli Vice President, Head of
Global Communications press@cloudflare.com
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