The annual report Year in Review 2024 from Cloudflare Radar provides a detailed analysis of global Internet trends, highlighting a 17.2% increase in global traffic over the year and a growing adoption of technologies such as post-quantum encryption and the HTTP/3 protocol. This study, in its fifth edition, analyzes key metrics such as traffic, connectivity, security, and technology usage, while also presenting local trends in 200 countries and regions.
Key Findings of the Report
Global Traffic Growth
Internet traffic recorded a growth of 17.2%, following a similar trend to previous years. Notably, Guinea in West Africa saw a traffic increase of 350%, while Cuba experienced significant drops due to blackouts in October and November caused by failures in its electrical grid and Hurricane Rafael. Furthermore, deliberate Internet disruptions directed by governments were a recurring factor, as seen in Bangladesh during student protests in July.
Rise of Security and Connectivity Technologies
13% of traffic using TLSTransport Layer Security (TLS) is a security protocol … 1.3 employed post-quantum encryption, driven by adoption in browsers like Chrome. Additionally, HTTP/3 accounted for 20.5% of global web requests, an improvement over the previous year. Meanwhile, Spain excelled in Internet quality metrics, with download speeds exceeding 292 Mbps and low latencies, reflecting its leadership in deploying high-capacity networks.
Mobile Devices and IPv6 Usage
Mobile devices generated 41.3% of global traffic, with figures exceeding 77% in countries like Sudan and Syria. Regarding IPv6 adoption, India led with 68.9%, followed by Malaysia at 59.6%. However, 96 countries still registered adoption rates below 10%, highlighting challenges for a complete transition.
Network Security: Persistent Threats
The report emphasizes that 6.5% of global traffic was mitigated by Cloudflare’s security systems, with distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks and firewall rules being the main tools employed. The United States accounted for over a third of bot traffic, followed by Germany. The gaming and gambling sector was the most attacked in 2024, surpassing the financial sector, which led the previous year.
A persistent threat was the Log4j vulnerability, which continued to be actively exploited despite being discovered in 2021. This vulnerability was notable for its constant activity and significantly outpaced other critical flaws discovered this year.
The Impact of Starlink and AI Bots
Global traffic associated with Starlink, SpaceX’s satellite Internet service, tripled in 2024. This growth was driven by expansion into new markets like Malawi and Georgia, where usage increased 38x and 100x, respectively. On the other hand, AI bots such as Bytespider (from ByteDance) and ClaudeBot (from Anthropic) showed a progressive decline in their activity, possibly reflecting adjustments in data collection for training AI models.
Conclusion and Outlook for 2025
The Cloudflare report highlights the impact of government policies, technological innovations, and persistent threats on shaping the Internet ecosystem. It also provides valuable insights for businesses and governments to plan connectivity and security strategies for the coming year. The Cloudflare Radar platform remains a crucial tool for monitoring and analyzing these trends in real time, paving the way for a more secure, faster, and accessible Internet.
References: CloudFlare and Radar 2024 CF