In this end-of-year episode of This Week in NET, host João Tomé is joined by Omer Yoachimik, Senior Product Manager for DDoS Protection at Cloudflare, to break down the realities of the 2025 DDoS threat landscape — and what’s coming next.
They discuss how DDoS attacks reached previously “theoretical” scales in 2025, including record-breaking 31 Tbps attacks, the rise of massive botnets like Aisuru, and how geopolitical events increasingly shape cyber activity. Omer explains why traditional scrubbing-center defenses are becoming obsolete, how Cloudflare’s autonomous, globally distributed mitigation works, and why automation and real-time intelligence are now essential.
The conversation closes with practical advice for organizations, common myths about DDoS risk, and what to expect in 2026 as attacks grow larger, faster, and more sophisticated.
DDoS threats related blog posts: https://blog.cloudflare.com/tag/ddos/
In this special Year in Review episode of This Week in NET, host João Tomé is joined by David Belson to break down the Cloudflare Radar 2025 Year in Review.
Together, they explore what Cloudflare’s global network reveals about how the Internet evolved over the past year — from the rapid rise of AI crawlers and agent traffic, to record-breaking DDoS attacks, the spread of post-quantum encryption, and the growing impact of government-directed shutdowns and outages.
The conversation looks at Internet resilience, security trends, and performance across countries, as well as what changed in Internet services, mobile platforms, and connectivity in 2025, and what these signals might tell us about 2026.
Explore the full Radar Year in Review microsite.
Read the related blog posts on the Cloudflare Blog:
In this short episode of This Week in NET, Craig Dennis, Senior Developer Educator for AI at Cloudflare, explains why Replicate is joining Cloudflare, and what that means for developers building with AI.
Replicate is widely known for making it easy to run thousands of high-quality AI models, from image generation and video to audio and language models, all through a simple, developer-friendly API. Craig breaks down why Replicate became such an important part of the AI ecosystem, and how bringing it into Cloudflare helps make Workers the best place to build and deploy AI and agentic workflows.
And there’s a bonus: we’re giving away Replicate credits so you can try models yourself. Stay tuned to the episode to learn how to get access and start experimenting.
Mentioned blog posts:
In this episode of This Week in NET, we talk with Daniele Molteni, Director of Product Management for Cloudflare’s WAF, about how Cloudflare responded within hours to a newly disclosed React Server Components vulnerability — deploying global protection before the public advisory was even released.
That speed matters. In just the first 11 days after disclosure, Cloudflare observed more than 1 billion exploitation attempts related to React2Shell, with sustained pressure averaging over 4 million hits per hour, and peaks far higher. Threat actors quickly integrated the vulnerability into large-scale scanning and reconnaissance, targeting even critical infrastructure. If you run React, upgrading is urgent.
Daniele explains how WAF rules are built, how new payload logging improvements help customers understand real attack traffic, and what’s coming next in 2026 — including Firewall for AI, fraud detection, and safer, gradual rule rollouts.
To close the episode, Systems Engineer Steve James gives a hands-on demo of a real-time multiplayer chess app running inside ChatGPT, built with the Agents SDK and Cloudflare Workers.
Mentioned blog posts:
In this episode of This Week in NET, host João Tomé sits down with Stephanie Cohen, Cloudflare’s Chief Strategy Officer, for a candid conversation about AI, content creators, financial services, partnerships, and the future of the Internet.
Stephanie shares how Cloudflare is helping keep the Internet open and resilient — from giving creators transparency and control over AI scraping, to enabling new models of agentic commerce through partnerships with Visa and Mastercard, to empowering organizations of all sizes through Cloudflare’s global network.
The conversation also explores the rise of Agentic Commerce, where AI agents can complete secure payments on behalf of users. Stephanie explains how this shift is emerging, why trust and standards matter, and how Cloudflare is working with key financial institutions to make it safe.
They also discuss what innovation looks like inside large companies, how AI is reshaping industries, and why Cloudflare sees itself as an enabler for both creators and the long tail of innovators.
Cloudflare Principal Network Engineer Tom Strickx joins This Week in NET to explain what really keeps the Internet running. From anchors cutting submarine cables to automation detecting bad Internet weather, Tom shares an inside look at how one of the world’s largest networks operates — and why human trust still matters in keeping the Internet alive.
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In this second part of our previous episode, host João Tomé talks with André Jesus, Systems Engineer at Cloudflare and front-end engineer on the Radar team. They discuss the latest updates to Cloudflare Radar, the platform that turns Internet data into accessible insights.
André, who joined Cloudflare as an intern in Lisbon, Portugal, in 2024, explains how radar.cloudflare.com showcases trends in Internet traffic, protocol adoption, and security. He walks us through Radar’s new Top-Level Domain (TLD) insights, how the team uses DNS magnitude to measure domain popularity, and why certificate transparency is crucial for a safer web.
The conversation also goes into outage monitoring, the Data Explorer and URL scanner tools, and how users around the world are finding surprising Internet trends — like the rise of Linux usage in France.
In this episode, host João Tomé talks with Marwan Fayed, Principal Scientist and Research Lead at Cloudflare, about the science behind understanding and improving the Internet.
They explore the Research Week blog takeover on Measurement, Resilience, and Transparency, discussing the tricky science of Internet measurement — including a traffic spike in Ukraine that revealed how complex it is to explain data at scale. Marwan shares how Cloudflare is building a framework for Internet resilience, preparing for a post-quantum future with Merkle tree certificates, and tackling the “store now, decrypt later” risk. They also cover Cloudflare’s work to identify users behind Carrier-Grade NAT, innovations in protocol defense, anonymous credentials, and the story behind WARP VPN.
At the heart of it all: how to make the Internet safer, faster, and more transparent, at global scale.
Learn more in the blog series: https://blog.cloudflare.com/tag/research/
In this special episode, host João Tomé reports from Cloudflare Connect Las Vegas (October 13-16) — the company’s first-ever global event, bringing together customers, partners, and developers from over 60 countries.
In the intro, we also share what’s coming next week on the Cloudflare blog — a special five-day series focused on Internet Measurement, Resilience, and Transparency: the foundations of a faster, safer, and more reliable web for everyone.
The episode covers major announcements, including Cloudflare’s partnership with Mastercard and Visa to secure automated commerce with AI agents through the new Trusted Agent Protocol and Agent Pay (Web Bot Auth).
We also feature clips from rapper and actor Common, who reflects on creativity, connection, and humanity in the age of AI.
Additionally, João speaks with several Cloudflare team members shaping the Internet’s future:
Full interviews with each guest will be published in the coming weeks.
Mentioned content:
In this episode of This Week in NET, host João Tomé is joined by Leslie Hasvold, Senior Director of Corporate Events, Programs & Customer Advocacy, and Craig Dennis, Senior Developer Educator for AI, to talk about Cloudflare’s first global Connect conference in Las Vegas and the launch of AI Avenue, a new documentary series exploring how people around the world are learning, experimenting, and building with AI.
We cover what to expect from Connect Las Vegas, from 100+ breakout sessions to keynotes focused on AI, innovation, and the future of the Internet — and we go behind the scenes of AI Avenue to learn how AI is reshaping creativity, education, and development.
Know more:
In this episode of This Week in NET, host João Tomé is joined by Cloudflare Senior Product Managers Korinne Alpers and Nikita Cano to recap all the announcements from Cloudflare’s 15th Birthday Week.
We cover AI, developer tools, security, performance, and how Cloudflare continues to give back to the Internet.
Highlights include:
• AI & Security: Firewall for AI, Shadow AI protection, and Content Signals Policy.
• For Creators & Nonprofits: Project Galileo expansion and new tools to control how AI uses content.
• New Economy: NET Dollar and the x402 Foundation with Coinbase.
• Developer Platform Upgrades: Cap’n Web RPC, VibeSDK, AI Search updates, PQC in WARP, and more.
• Investing in the Future: 1,111 interns in 2026 plus new student and startup programs.
Full list of announcements: cloudflare.com/birthday-week