Cloudflare says it dealt with an unprecedented number of DDoS attacks in 2024, recording a staggering 358% jump compared to the year before, and the attacks are only getting worse in 2025.
According to Cloudflare’s 2025 Q1 DDoS Report, the company mitigated 21.3 million attacks throughout 2024. Shockingly, it has already handled 20.5 million DDoS attacks just in the first three months of 2025.
Cloudflare itself was a target, too. Its network infrastructure endured 6.6 million attacks during an intense 18-day assault that combined different types of attacks, including SYN floods, Mirai botnet-based DDoS attacks, and SSDP amplification strikes.
Most of the attacks (16.8 million) focused on the network layer, which has seen explosive growth — a 509% increase year-over-year. Hyper-volumetric attacks, those exceeding 1 Tbps or 1 billion packets per second, are also becoming more common, with Cloudflare recording more than 700 such events in the first quarter alone. On average, there were eight massive attacks per day.
Cloudflare also spotted two emerging threats in early 2025:
- CLDAP Reflection/Amplification Attacks: These rose by an incredible 3,488%. They exploit the UDP version of LDAP, which doesn’t require a handshake and allows attackers to spoof IP addresses and overwhelm targets with traffic.
- ESP Reflection/Amplification Attacks: These surged by 2,301%, taking advantage of misconfigured or vulnerable network systems.
Gaming servers are frequent targets, too. In one major attack this year, a U.S.-based hosting provider offering servers for games like Counter-Strike: GO and Team Fortress 2 was hit. Attackers flooded port 27015 — crucial for multiplayer gaming — reaching an insane 1.5 billion packets per second. Cloudflare managed to block it before serious damage was done.
On top of all this, Cloudflare CEO Matthew Prince revealed that the company recently mitigated a record-breaking DDoS attack peaking at 5.8 Tbps, lasting about 45 seconds. That’s even bigger than the previous record of 5.6 Tbps set by a Mirai-based botnet.
Prince also hinted that an even larger DDoS attack happened on the same day, with more details promised soon.
If the first quarter is any sign, 2025 could be a record year for cyberattacks — and Cloudflare says it’s gearing up for even bigger battles ahead.
