Cloudflare has released its sixth annual Year in Review, offering a detailed snapshot of how the global Internet evolved during 2025 amid rising automation, intensifying cyber threats, and rapid advances in cryptography.
Drawing on data from its global network, the report outlines a year marked by significant growth in traffic volumes, escalating “bot wars,” and a notable shift in the targets and scale of online attacks, underscoring how deeply digital infrastructure has become embedded in economic, social, and political life.
According to Cloudflare’s analysis, global Internet traffic grew 19 percent year over year, reflecting both continued digitalization across industries and expanding consumer reliance on online services. This growth coincided with major developments in artificial intelligence, which influenced not only how applications are built and delivered, but also how automated traffic interacts with the web. The rise of AI-driven tools has accelerated innovation, but it has also contributed to a more contested Internet environment, where automated agents increasingly compete for access, data, and visibility.
One of the most significant security milestones highlighted in the report is the progress of post-quantum encryption. By the end of 2025, more than half of all human Internet traffic was protected using post-quantum cryptographic methods, designed to withstand future attacks from quantum computers. This marks a major step toward long-term data protection, particularly for enterprises and public institutions concerned about “harvest now, decrypt later” threats. Cloudflare frames the milestone as both a technological achievement and a response to growing awareness that today’s encrypted data may remain valuable for decades.
At the same time, the report paints a picture of an increasingly hostile threat landscape. Cloudflare recorded more than 25 record-breaking distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks during the year, reflecting what it describes as a dramatic escalation in cyber warfare capabilities. These attacks pushed the boundaries of scale, forcing network operators and security teams to rethink assumptions about capacity, resilience, and response strategies.
A notable shift in attacker behavior also emerged in 2025. For the first time, civil society and non-profit organizations became the most targeted sector for cyberattacks. Cloudflare suggests this change may be linked to the sensitive nature of the data these organizations hold, as well as the perception that they may have fewer resources to defend themselves. The trend raises concerns for advocacy groups, humanitarian organizations, and non-profits that increasingly depend on digital platforms to operate and engage with stakeholders.
Automation continues to reshape Internet traffic patterns. The report shows that Google’s web crawling bot accounted for a dominant share of automated traffic, far exceeding other AI bots. This concentration highlights how a small number of major technology providers now exert outsized influence on how content is indexed, discovered, and consumed online. In parallel, Google and Meta maintained their positions as the world’s most popular Internet services for the fourth year running, while ChatGPT retained its top ranking in the generative AI category, signaling sustained demand for AI-powered conversational tools.
Cloudflare’s data also sheds light on the causes of Internet disruptions worldwide. Nearly half of all major outages observed in 2025 were linked to government actions, such as shutdowns, restrictions, or regulatory interventions. This contrasts with a sharp decline in outages caused by physical cable cuts, which fell by nearly 50 percent, while disruptions attributed to power failures doubled. The findings suggest that geopolitical and policy decisions are playing an increasingly prominent role in Internet reliability.
From a performance perspective, Europe emerged as a global leader in connectivity quality. European countries dominated average download speed rankings, all exceeding 200 Mbps, with Spain ranking first worldwide for overall Internet quality. For businesses operating latency-sensitive applications, these regional differences continue to influence decisions about infrastructure placement and service delivery.
The insights in the report are derived from Cloudflare Radar, a public analytics platform powered by aggregated and anonymized data from Cloudflare’s global network, which spans more than 330 cities across 120 countries. Together, the findings illustrate an Internet that is growing faster, becoming more automated, and facing higher-stakes security challenges than ever before.
Executive Insights FAQ
What makes Cloudflare’s Year in Review significant for businesses?
It provides a data-driven view of global Internet trends that directly affect security, performance, and digital strategy.
Why is post-quantum encryption important now?
It helps protect today’s data from future quantum computing threats, ensuring long-term confidentiality.
Which organizations faced increased cyber risk in 2025?
Civil society and non-profit organizations became the most targeted sector for cyberattacks.
How are bots changing Internet traffic patterns?
Automated traffic is increasingly dominated by a small number of AI-driven crawlers, reshaping content discovery.
What caused most major Internet outages last year?
Government actions accounted for nearly half of the largest disruptions worldwide.
