Cyberattacks on Nonprofits & Journalists Surge 241% in a Year

The number of cyberattacks targeting nonprofits, independent media, and civil rights organizations has surged by a whopping 241% over the past year. As per the new data shared by Cloudflare’s Project Galileo. This initiative provides free cybersecurity protection to vulnerable public interest groups, blocking nearly 109 billion threats between May 2024 and March 2025. That’s around  325 million attacks per day.

The Project Galileo is in its 11th year and supports over 2,600  organizations worldwide. The latest findings point to a worrying trend: DDoS attacks (Distributed Denial-of-Service) are becoming more frequent and intense, often replacing traditional hacking methods like web application exploits.

Journalists and Human Rights Groups Hit the Hardest

According to Cloudflare, they have blocked over 97 billion malicious requests at 315 such organizations, with a massive peak recorded on September 28, 2024. That spike coincided with a massive DDoS attack on the Belarusian Investigative Center, which had joined Project Galileo just a day earlier.

Apart from that, civil and human rights organizations were the second most targeted group, where the company blocked around 8.9 billion requests. One of the most notable attacks hit Tech4Peace, a digital rights nonprofit, with a 12-day campaign that varied between low-intensity and sudden high-volume bursts. 

Real-Time Threat Insights and Global Expansion

The anniversary report also includes an interactive Cloudflare Radar dashboard, which gives real-time insights into attack patterns and trends. The company wants to equip researchers, policymakers, and digital rights advocates with actionable data as attacks against public interest organizations become increasingly sophisticated. 

That’s not all, though. Cloudflare is also expanding its Project Galileo’s footprint in Asia-Pacific by partnering with two new regional organizations focused on digital rights. This move comes as threats in the region continue to rise, and more civil society groups come online without the necessary protection in place.  

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