Cloudflare: The Unseen Guardian Safeguarding 20% of the Internet

Every day, millions of people navigate the internet, while an invisible shield deflects over 209 billion cyber threats.

This digital fortress, managed by Cloudflare—an internet infrastructure company that enhances website performance, security, and reliability—protects around 20% of all web traffic, highlighting the company’s essential role in today’s online ecosystem.

“We’re built on an intelligent, secure, high-speed global network,” explains Steve Bray, Cloudflare’s Vice President for Australia and New Zealand. “We empower businesses to regain control of their technology and security environments by simplifying complexity and enhancing visibility across their on-premises, public cloud, SaaS, and public internet domains.”

Cloudflare as a company

Steve’s mission at Cloudflare addresses a significant challenge for modern organizations: the growing complexity of securing distributed networks and remote workers. “Maintaining visibility and control has never been more challenging,” he notes. Cloudflare’s solutions aim to streamline this landscape, providing a unified approach to security, performance, and network management.

This is seamlessly supported by the company’s extensive reach, with data centers in over 320 cities across 120 countries. This infrastructure enables Cloudflare to deliver ultra-low latency—”approximately 50 milliseconds for about 95% of internet users worldwide,” states Steve.

Case in point for Cloudflare

However, behind the statistics are tangible results. Cloudflare’s collaboration with the New South Wales Department of Customer Service, which faced issues such as a lack of real-time visibility and inconsistent security policies across agencies, led to meaningful change.

Cloudflare’s involvement focused on providing capabilities that the Department could utilize to facilitate secure access to government services for 8 million citizens in New South Wales.

Services and capabilities

While Cloudflare is well-known for its Content Delivery Network (CDN), Steve emphasizes that their services extend far beyond this. “The company tackles several key challenges in the digital landscape.”

First, they aim to significantly enhance performance, reducing website load times by up to 50%. Reliability is another vital aspect, with Cloudflare ensuring uninterrupted service even during network disruptions. Cost savings are achieved by minimizing bandwidth expenses through efficient content delivery.

Perhaps most importantly, Cloudflare excels in providing resiliency, defending against massive DDoS attacks to keep websites operational even under severe threats, which have become increasingly prevalent in today’s cyber landscape.

Looking beyond

As for the future, Steve outlines several key focus areas for Cloudflare. Firstly, the company intends to strengthen its strategic partnerships and seek new alliances with technology providers, government agencies, and enterprises across various sectors.

This is because expanding Cloudflare’s global reach remains a priority, with ongoing efforts to increase the number of data centers in their network, particularly in emerging markets.

Innovation is also a significant focus. In 2023, 17% of Cloudflare’s revenue was allocated to research and development. Steve echoes that this will continue to be central to Cloudflare’s strategy in 2024 as well.

“Investing in R&D remains a top priority for us,” Steve affirms. “We’re dedicated to developing cutting-edge technologies and new features that meet the evolving needs of our customers.”

This commitment to innovation is paired with a focus on enhancing customer experience, with plans to introduce new tools and resources to help customers maximize the value of Cloudflare’s solutions.

Finally, Cloudflare is committed to fostering a secure and open internet. As part of their mission, they continue to advocate for an accessible digital world, collaborating with industry leaders, policymakers, and the broader community to establish standards and practices that enhance internet security and reliability for all.

“Our ultimate goal,” Steve concludes, “is to create a better, safer internet for businesses and individuals around the globe.”

As cyber threats evolve and internet usage continues to rise, Cloudflare’s role in shaping a secure digital future becomes increasingly vital.

With its extensive network, innovative solutions, and commitment to an open internet, the company stands at the forefront of the ongoing effort to make the web faster, more reliable, safer, and ultimately more accessible for everyone.

To read the full Department of Customer Service report, click HERE.

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