Cyber Threats Surge While AI Critics Raise Eyebrows in Cloudflare’s Annual Internet Review

Unprecedented Rise in Cyber Threats

Cloudflare has released its annual Radar 2025 Review, highlighting key trends in the global network. Over the past year, global internet traffic grew by 19%. Nonetheless, the headline-grabbing news was the unprecedented rise in cyber threats, with the first-ever ultra-scale DDoS attacks exceeding 30 Tbps; the peak was observed in November, reaching 31.4 Tbps. Interestingly, the primary sources of bot traffic were the United States (40%) and cloud services from AWS and Google Cloud.

AI’s Growing Yet Disruptive Influence

Artificial intelligence continues to deeply integrate into the network’s structure. The volume of web page scanning by AI bots increased 15-fold, driven mainly by ChatGPT users. A significant imbalance is apparent: platforms such as Anthropic actively scan content, at a ratio of 100,000:1 to real traffic, but scarcely bring new human visitors to sites. Consequently, webmasters are increasingly blocking bots like GPTBot and ClaudeBot. Among AI services, ChatGPT maintains the lead, with Google Gemini, xAI Grok, and DeepSeek also featuring in the top 10.

Security Concerns: Spammers and Scammers on the Rise

In security circles, experts noted heightened activity from spammers and scammers. Approximately 5.6% of all emails contained threats, predominantly phishing links. Interestingly, 99% of emails sent from the .christmas and .lol domains were spam or malware.

Shifts in the Technological Landscape

The technological landscape has also evolved. Starlink’s satellite network traffic doubled over the year, expanding its geographical reach to 20 additional regions. Among mobile devices, Apple holds 35% of global traffic. Spain was recognized as the leader for connection quality in Europe, with an average download speed of 300 Mbps.