João Tomé, Author at NetworkingNexus.net

João Tomé

Author Archives: João Tomé

From ChatGPT to Temu: ranking top Internet services in 2024

Since the late 1990s, millions have relied on the Internet for searching, communicating, shopping, and working, though 2.6 billion people (about 31% of the global population) still lack Internet access. Over the years, use of the Internet has evolved from email and static sites to social media, streaming, e-commerce, cloud tools, and more recently AI chatbots, reflecting its constant adaptation to users' needs. This post explores how people interacted online in 2024, based on Cloudflare’s observations and a review of the year’s DNS trends.

Building on similar reports we’ve done over the past several years, we have compiled a ranking of the top Internet properties of 2024, with the same categories included in 2023, including Generative AI. In addition to our overall ranking, we chose 9 categories to focus on:

As we have done since 2022, our analysis uses anonymized DNS query data from our 1.1.1.1 public DNS resolver, used by millions globally. We aggregate domains for each service (e.g., twitter.com, t.co, and x.com for X) and identify the sites that Continue reading

From deals to DDoS: exploring Cyber Week 2024 Internet trends

In 2024, Thanksgiving (November 28), Black Friday (November 29), and Cyber Monday (December 2) significantly impacted Internet traffic, similar to trends seen in 2023 and previous years. This year, Thanksgiving in the US drove a 20% drop in daily traffic compared to the previous week, with a notable 33% dip at 15:45 ET. In contrast, Black Friday and Cyber Monday drove traffic spikes. But how global is this trend, and do attacks increase during Cyber Week?

At Cloudflare, we manage and protect a substantial amount of traffic for our customers, providing a unique vantage point to analyze traffic and attack patterns across the Internet. This perspective reveals insights like Cyber Monday being the busiest Internet traffic day of 2024 globally, followed by Black Friday, with patterns varying across countries. Notably, global HTTP request volume on Cyber Monday 2024 was 36% higher than 2023, with 5% of that traffic blocked as potential attacks.

For this analysis, we examined anonymized and aggregated HTTP requests and DNS queries across our network to uncover key patterns. Cyber Monday, December 2, was the day with peak traffic, and key findings for that day include:

Cloudflare processed a peak of 99.8 million HTTP requests per Continue reading

Exploring Internet traffic shifts and cyber attacks during the 2024 US election

Elections are not just a matter of casting ballots. They depend on citizens being able to register to vote and accessing information about candidates and the election process, which in turn depend on the strength and security of the Internet. Despite the risks posed by potential cyberattacks aimed to disrupt democracy, Cloudflare did not observe any significant disruptions to campaigns or local government websites from cyberattack.

Tuesday, November 5, 2024 was Election Day in the United States. It not only decided the next president and vice president but also included elections for the US Senate, House of Representatives, state governorships, and state legislatures. Results confirm that Republican Donald Trump won the presidential election.

In this blog post, we examine online attacks against election-related sites — some of which were notable but none were disruptive — and how initial election results impacted Internet traffic across the US at both national and state levels, with increases in traffic as much as 15% nationwide. We’ll also explore email phishing trends and general DNS data around news interest, the candidates, and election-related activity.

We’ve been tracking 2024 elections globally through our blog and election report on Cloudflare Radar, covering some of the more Continue reading

How the Harris-Trump US presidential debate influenced Internet traffic

Much has changed in the 2024 United States presidential election since the June 27 debate between Donald Trump and Joe Biden, then the presumptive nominees for the November election. Now, over two months later, on September 10, the debate was between Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee, and Donald Trump, the Republican nominee. In this post, we will explore the event's impact on Internet traffic in specific states where there was a bigger impact than during the Biden-Trump debate, as well as examine cyberattacks, email phishing trends, and general DNS data on candidates, news, and election-related activity.

We’ve been tracking the 2024 elections globally through our blog and election report on Cloudflare Radar, covering some of the more than 60 national elections this year. Regarding the US elections, we have previously reported on trends surrounding the first Biden vs. Trump debate, the attempted assassination of Trump, the Republican National Convention, and the Democratic National Convention.

Typically, we have observed that election days don’t come with significant changes to Internet traffic, and the same is true for debates. Yet, debates can also draw attention that impacts traffic, especially when there is heightened anticipation. The 2024 debates were not only Continue reading

Exploring Internet and security trends during the 2024 U.S. Democratic National Convention

The 2024 Democratic National Convention (DNC) wrapped up on Thursday, August 22, in Chicago, Illinois. Since our blog post about Internet trends during the first presidential debate between President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump on June 27, the presidential race has fundamentally changed. We experienced the attempted assassination of Trump, the Republican National Convention (RNC), Biden’s late July withdrawal from the race, and Vice President Kamala Harris being selected as the Democratic nominee and participating in her party’s convention this week. Here, we’ll examine trends more focused on DNS traffic to news and candidate-related sites, cyberattacks targeting politically-related organizations, and spam and malicious emails mentioning the candidates’ names.

Over 60 more national elections are scheduled to take place across the world this year, and we have been monitoring them as they occur. Our goal is to provide a neutral analysis of their impact on Internet behavior, which often mirrors human activities. Significant events, such as the total eclipse in Mexico, the United States, and Canada, and the Paris 2024 Olympics, have had an impact on Internet traffic. Our ongoing election report on Cloudflare Radar includes updates from recent elections in the European Union, France, Continue reading

Paris 2024 Olympics recap: Internet trends, cyber threats, and popular moments

The Paris 2024 Summer Olympics wrapped up on August 11, 2024, with the Olympic flag being lowered in the Stade de France after 16 days of competitions. With 329 events across 32 sports, over 10,000 athletes from 204 nations participated in the pursuit of medals and glory, creating some viral online moments along the way. In this post, we turn our attention to the closing ceremony, the impact of various Olympic moments on Internet traffic, and the cyber attacks faced by sponsors. We also examine email trends related to the Olympics, including mentions of Simone Biles, Snoop Dogg, and Imane Khelif.

Cloudflare has a global presence with data centers in over 330 cities, supporting millions of customers with different tools and products, which provides a global view of what’s happening on the Internet. This is helpful for improving security, privacy, efficiency, and speed, but also for observing Internet disruptions and traffic trends.

In our previous blog post about the opening ceremony and the early days of the event, we showed how France was impacted by the Olympics, with clear drops in traffic during the main events. The opening ceremony caused the most significant drop—traffic decreased by as much as 20% Continue reading

Paris 2024 Olympics recap: Internet trends, cyber threats, and popular moments

How the Paris 2024 Summer Olympics has impacted Internet traffic

The Paris 2024 Summer Olympics, themed “Games Wide Open” (“Ouvrons grand les Jeux”), kicked off on Friday, July 26, 2024, and will run until August 11. A total of 10,714 athletes from 204 nations, including individual and refugee teams, will compete in 329 events across 32 sports. This blog post focuses on the opening ceremony and the initial days of the event, examining associated impact on Internet traffic, especially in France, the popularity of Olympic websites by country, and the rise in Olympics-related spam and malicious emails.

Cloudflare has a global presence with data centers in over 320 cities, supporting millions of customers, which provides a global view of what’s happening on the Internet. This is helpful for improving security, privacy, efficiency, and speed, but also for observing Internet disruptions and traffic trends.

We are closely monitoring the event through our 2024 Olympics report on Cloudflare Radar and will provide updates on significant Internet trends as they develop.

An opening ceremony to remember

For the first time in modern Olympic history, the opening ceremony was held outside a stadium, lasting nearly four hours and clearly impacting Internet traffic in France. The nation’s engagement was evident during Continue reading

How the Paris 2024 Summer Olympics has impacted Internet traffic

We are closely monitoring the event through our 2024 Olympics report on Cloudflare Radar and will provide updates on significant Internet trends as they develop.

An opening ceremony to remember

Countdown to Paris 2024 Olympics: France leads in web interest

The 2024 Summer Olympics, or Paris 2024, is set from July 26 to August 11 in France. The opening ceremony, scheduled for Friday, July 26 at 17:30, will take place for the first time not in a stadium but in the open space of the Jardins du Trocadéro by the Seine River in Paris. We’ll monitor relevant Internet insights throughout the event, but here we analyze some pre-event trends, from the popularity of Olympic websites by country to the increase in Olympics-related spam and malicious emails.

This year’s Olympics will host 329 events across 32 sports, featuring the debut of breakdancing as an Olympic event and the return of skateboarding, sport climbing, and surfing from 2020. Similar to our 2024 elections coverage, we will maintain a Paris 2024 Olympics report on Cloudflare Radar, updating it as significant Internet trends related to the event emerge.

From our 1.1.1.1 resolver, DNS trends show heightened interest in the Olympics, especially from France. 24% of DNS requests for official Olympic-related websites came from the host country, followed by the United Kingdom and the United States, with 20% and 17% respectively.

Here’s the breakdown of countries responsible for at Continue reading

Countdown to Paris 2024 Olympics: France leads in web interest

Here’s the breakdown of countries responsible for at Continue reading

Exploring Internet traffic during the 2024 U.S. Republican National Convention

Internet traffic typically mirrors human behavior, with significant fluctuations during large political events. This comes during a time when the United States is in election mode, as political campaigns are in full swing and candidates for various offices, primaries and caucuses make their case to voters and debates are being held. This week, the Republican National Convention was hosted in Milwaukee, Wisconsin from July 15 to 18, 2024. We examined traffic shifts and cyberattacks since June 2024 to see how these events have impacted the Internet.

Attacks on political related websites

Cyberattacks are a constant threat, and aren't necessarily driven by elections. With that said, notable trends can often be observed, and we’ve seen before how specific geopolitical events can trigger online attacks. For example, we saw cyberattacks at the start of the war in Ukraine to more recently in the Netherlands, when the June 2024 European elections coincided with cyberattacks on Dutch political-related websites that lasted two days — June 5th and 6th. The main DDoS (Distributed Denial of Service attack) attack on June 5, the day before the Dutch election, reached 73,000 requests per second (rps).

Shifting our focus to the United States in particular, Continue reading

Euro 2024’s impact on Internet traffic: a closer look at finalists Spain and England

National team sports unite countries, and football (known as “soccer” in the US) is the world’s most popular sport, boasting approximately 3.5 billion fans globally. The UEFA Euro 2024, running from June 14 to July 14, 2024, significantly impacts Internet traffic across participating European nations. This blog post focuses on the two finalists, Spain and England, and comes after an initial post we published during the first week of the tournament.

Analyzing traffic patterns reveals distinct high-level trends. Spain saw the most significant drops in Internet traffic during games against major teams and former champions such as Italy (the defending champion), Germany, and France. In contrast, England’s games had crucial moments towards the end, leading to the largest traffic reductions in the UK, especially during the knockout stages.

For context, as previously mentioned, football games like the Super Bowl, differ from other events such as elections. When major teams or national squads play, especially in matches that captivate many viewers, Internet traffic often drops. This is particularly true if the game is broadcast on a national TV channel. During such broadcasts, people tend to focus more on their TV sets, relying on the traditional broadcast signal Continue reading

French elections: political cyber attacks and Internet traffic shifts

The 2024 French legislative election runoff on July 7 yielded surprising results compared to the first round on June 30, with the New Popular Front (NPF) gaining the most seats, followed by French President Macron’s Ensemble party, and the National Rally. Coalition negotiations will follow. In this post, we examine the ongoing online attacks against French political parties and how initial election predictions at 20:00 local time led to a noticeable drop in France’s Internet traffic.

This blog post is part of a series tracking the numerous elections of 2024. We have covered elections in South Africa, India, Iceland, Mexico, the European Union, the UK and also the 2024 US presidential debate. We also continuously update our election report on Cloudflare Radar.

Let’s start with the attacks, and then move on to the Internet traffic trends.

Political parties under attack

As we highlighted last week, the first round of the French elections saw specific DDoS (Distributed Denial of Service) attacks targeting French political party websites. While online attacks are common and not always election-related, recent activities in France, the Netherlands, and the UK confirm that DDoS attacks frequently target political parties during election Continue reading

UK election day 2024: traffic trends and attacks on political parties

The 2024 UK general election, the first since Brexit officially began (January 31, 2020) and after 14 years of Conservative leadership, saw the Labour Party secure a majority. This blog post examines Internet traffic trends and cyberattack activity on election day, highlighting notable declines in traffic during the afternoon and evening as well as a DDoS attack on a political party shortly after polls closed.

For context, 2024 is considered “the year of elections,” with elections taking place in over 60 countries. We’ve covered elections in South Africa, India, Iceland, Mexico, the European Union, France, and also the 2024 US presidential debate. We also continuously update our election report on Cloudflare Radar.

The UK’s snap election on Thursday, July 4, 2024, typical of British Thursday weekday elections, contrasts with weekend elections in other countries. Polling stations were open from 07:00 to 22:00.

Generally, election days do not result in drastic changes to Internet traffic. Traffic typically dips during voting hours but not as sharply as during major events like national holidays, and rises in the evening as results are announced.

On July 4, 2024, traffic initially rose slightly from the previous week, then fell around noon Continue reading

First round of French election: party attacks and a modest traffic dip

This post is also available in Français.

France is currently electing a new government through early legislative elections that began on Sunday, June 30, 2024, with a second round scheduled for July 7. In this blog, we show how Cloudflare blocked DDoS attacks targeting three different French political parties.

2024 has been dubbed “the year of elections,” with elections taking place in over 60 countries, as we have mentioned before (1, 2, 3). If you regularly follow the Cloudflare blog, you’re aware that we consistently cover election-related trends, including in South Africa, India, Iceland, Mexico, the European Union and the 2024 US presidential debate. We also continuously update our election report on Cloudflare Radar.

Recently in France, as in the early stages of the war in Ukraine and during EU elections in the Netherlands, political events have precipitated cyberattacks. In France, several DDoS (Distributed Denial of Service attack) attacks targeted political parties involved in the elections over the past few days, with two parties hit just before the first round and another on election day itself.

The first political party, shown in yellow in the previous chart, experienced a DDoS attack on Continue reading

How the first 2024 US presidential debate influenced Internet traffic and security trends

Key findings:

The Biden vs. Trump debate influenced Internet traffic at the state level in the US, with drops in traffic as high as 17% (in Vermont) during the debate.
Microblogging and video streaming platforms saw traffic changes during the debate.
Trump-related sites, including donation platforms, gained much more traction than Biden’s during and after the debate.
Emails with “Trump” in the subject had higher rates of spam and malicious content compared to those with “Biden.”
No increase in cyberattacks during the debate, but frequent DDoS attacks targeted government and political sites in the preceding months.

Internet traffic ebbs and flows usually follow human patterns, and high visibility events that are broadcast on TV usually have an impact. Let’s take a look at the first of the 2024 United States presidential debates between the two major presumptive candidates, Joe Biden and Donald Trump, for the November presidential election.

2024 has been dubbed “the year of elections,” with elections taking place in over 60 countries, as we have mentioned before (1, 2, 3). We are regularly updating our election report on Cloudflare Radar, including analysis of recent elections in South Africa, India, Iceland, Mexico, Continue reading

How the UEFA Euro 2024 football games are impacting local Internet traffic

Football (“soccer” in the US) is considered the most popular sport in the world, with around 3.5 billion fans spread across the world. European football is central to its popularity. The UEFA Euro 2024 (the European Football Championship) started on June 14 and will run until July 14, 2024. But how much do these games impact Internet traffic in countries where national teams are playing? That’s what we aim to explore in this blog post. We found that, on average, traffic dropped 6% during games in European countries with national teams playing in the tournament.

Cloudflare has a global presence with data centers in over 320 cities, which helps provide a global view of what’s happening on the Internet. This is helpful for security, privacy, efficiency, and speed purposes, but also for observing Internet disruptions and traffic trends.

In the past, we’ve seen how Internet traffic and HTTP requests are impacted by events such as total solar eclipses, the Super Bowl, and elections. 2024 is the year of elections, and we’ve been sharing our observations in blog posts and our new 2024 Election Insights report on Cloudflare Radar.

However, football games are different from elections. Related trends Continue reading

Exploring the 2024 EU Election: Internet traffic trends and cybersecurity insights

The 2024 European Parliament election took place June 6-9, 2024, with hundreds of millions of Europeans from the 27 countries of the European Union electing 720 members of the European Parliament. This was the first election after Brexit and without the UK, and it had an impact on the Internet. In this post, we will review some of the Internet traffic trends observed during the election days, as well as providing insight into cyberattack activity.

Elections matter, and as we have mentioned before (1, 2), 2024 is considered “the year of elections”, with voters going to the polls in at least 60 countries, as well as the 27 EU member states. That’s why we’re publishing a regularly updated election report on Cloudflare Radar. We’ve already included our analysis of recent elections in South Africa, India, Iceland, and Mexico, and provided a policy view on the EU elections.

The European Parliament election coincided with several other national or local elections in European Union member states, leading to direct consequences. For example, in Belgium, the prime minister announced his resignation, resulting in a drop in Internet traffic during the speech followed by a clear increase after the speech was Continue reading

Internet insights on 2024 elections in the Netherlands, South Africa, Iceland, India, and Mexico

2024 is being called by the media “the” year of elections. More voters than ever are going to the polls in at least 60 countries for national elections, plus the 27 member states of the European Union. This includes eight of the world’s 10 most populous nations, impacting around half of the world’s population.

To track and analyze these significant global events, we’ve created the 2024 Election Insights report on Cloudflare Radar, which will be regularly updated as elections take place.

Our data shows that during elections, there is often a decrease in Internet traffic during polling hours, followed by an increase as results are announced. This trend has been observed before in countries like France and Brazil, and more recently in Mexico and India — where elections were held between April 19 and June 1 in seven phases. Some regions, like Comoros and Pakistan, have experienced government-directed Internet disruptions around election time.

Below, you’ll find a review of the trends we saw in elections in South Africa (May 29), to Mexico (June 2), India (April 19 - June 1) and Iceland (June 1). This includes election-related shifts in traffic, as well at attacks. For example, during the Continue reading

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