The Paris 2024 Summer Olympics, which began on July 26, concluded on Sunday, August 11, after 16 days of competition with more than 10,000 athletes from 204 nations competing in 32 sports.

Throughout the event, we monitored relevant Internet insights, as detailed in this report.

On July 22, before the Olympics started, we reported on the heightened interest in official Olympic websites based on request data from our 1.1.1.1 DNS resolver. We noted France’s dominance with 24% of DNS traffic to official Olympic websites, followed by the UK (20%) and the US (17%). However, the start of the Olympics marked a shift, with the US taking the lead, maintaining it throughout the event.

The dynamic world map below showcases the shift in percentages across different days of the Paris 2024 Olympics, highlighting the broadening spread of interest among countries as the event progressed. This shift is further detailed in the day-by-day dynamic version available in our Paris 2024 Olympics report.

Published on August 14, 2024

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

Closing ceremony impact in France

(This content was also published on The Cloudflare Blog)

More than two weeks after the Summer Olympics began, the 3-hour closing ceremony on August 11, 2024, had a similar impact as the opening ceremony did on Internet traffic in France, although less pronounced. Internet traffic dropped by as much as 14% compared to the previous week at the start of the ceremony, around 19:15 UTC. Here is a breakdown of the top three traffic drops compared to the previous week during the ceremony, detailing the events occurring at those times. Our data provides insights with 15-minute granularity.

During the closing ceremony, from 19:00 to 22:00 UTC, traffic in France was significantly lower than the previous week, down between 3% - 14%. The decreases were less pronounced during the middle and end of the event. Internet requests increased during band performances and the official closing speeches. Traffic also rose during Yseult’s finale, singing a rendition of Frank Sinatra’s “My Way,” contrasting with the significant drop during Celine Dion’s performance at the end of the opening ceremony.

In exploring traffic trends for other countries, we found that the closing ceremony didn’t have as clear an impact as the opening event did.

Taking a broader look at traffic in France during the entire Olympic period, daily traffic dropped by as much as 8% on July 28 but remained fairly stable afterward, with a 3% drop on August 8.

Mobile device use rose in France

Mobile device traffic share continued to grow during the event, with more people using mobile devices to access the Internet. This trend of more mobile use in France aligns not only with more tourists and visitors in the country during the Olympics – visitors more typically use mobile devices to access the Internet – but also with French people taking vacations and working less during this time. Weekly mobile device traffic share in France in mid-June was 49%, and since the Olympics started, it has increased to between 53% and 54%.

In France, mobile device use is higher on weekends. However, looking at daily trends, mobile traffic share on weekdays was clearly higher after July 26, when the Olympics began.

Parisians left, Olympic tourists arrived

We’ve seen before that Parisians appeared to left town (and the region) just before the Olympics. In the Paris region of Île-de-France, with the Olympics, traffic during the first week of the event dropped as much as 6% on July 30, compared to the previous week. Traffic picked up a bit on the second weekend of the Olympics but dropped even more during the second and final week.

The chart below illustrates daily traffic to the Île-de-France region, with a noticeable decline visible during the weekend before the Olympics that was more pronounced during the event.

Weekly traffic dropped 8% the week the Olympics started and remained stable the following week. Even so, by August 4, the last week of the Olympics, traffic was 23% lower in the Île-de-France region than in the week of June 30, when it was at its highest in recent weeks.

Significant moments: from Simone Biles to breakdancing debut

Below, we highlight specific Olympic events affecting Internet traffic that we were able to observe in our data from different locations (ordered by the numbers of medals in the event), starting from the first full competition day on Saturday, July 27, 2024.

Host nation France was clearly the one with more significant impacts to Internet traffic during relevant moments of the Olympics.

United States: The artistic gymnastics competition featuring four-time Olympic gold medalist Simone Biles had a greater impact on U.S. Internet traffic than the opening ceremony. On July 26-28, traffic dipped most significantly during Biles’ events. On the 28th, at 10:00 UTC, during her beam routine, traffic was already 4% lower than the previous week. It dropped by 6% at 10:45 UTC during her floor and vault routines.

On July 29, at 19:30 UTC, traffic dropped 4% during the swimming event where Ryan Murphy won the bronze medal in the men’s 100m backstroke final.

Another notable drop occurred on August 10, with a 7% decrease around 15:00 UTC during the women’s football gold medal match between Brazil and the USA. Later that day, during the men’s basketball gold medal game between France and the USA, traffic dropped by as much as 6%.

Great Britain: The first weekend of the Olympics saw clear drops in traffic, with a 10% decrease compared to the previous week around 15:00 UTC on July 28, 2024. British athletes participated in several events during those busy days. Traffic the following weekend was slightly higher than in the first Olympic weekend but dropped again on the final day, August 11.

France: As previously noted, French swimmer Léon Marchand’s gold medal and Olympic record in the men’s 400-meter individual medley on July 28 had the most significant impact on French traffic during the Olympics, aside from the 20% drop seen during the opening ceremony. Traffic fell by 17% at 18:30 UTC during his event—the same level of drop seen during the closing ceremony. Similar impacts occurred during other swimming events:

• July 29, 19:45 UTC, 14% drop during the Women’s 100m Backstroke Semifinals featuring Yohann Ndoye-Brouard.
• July 30, 19:00 UTC, 12% drop during the Men’s 200m Butterfly Semifinals with Léon Marchand.
• July 31, 18:30-20:30 UTC, 7% to 10% drop during the Men’s 200m Butterfly final with Léon Marchand.
• August 1, 18:45 UTC, 8% drop during swimming semifinals and finals.

Other notable drops include breakdancing:

• August 9, 14:30 UTC, 10% drop during the Breaking dance debut with France’s participation.
• August 10, 18:45-21:00 UTC, 7% drop during the Breaking B-Boys gold medal battle and the men’s basketball gold medal game, France vs USA.
• August 11, 07:00 UTC, 8% drop during the women’s marathon.

Australia: During Mollie O’Callaghan’s victory in the women’s 200m freestyle on July 29, at around 20:00 UTC, Australian traffic was 5% lower than the previous week, a larger drop than during the opening ceremony, which saw a 2% decrease.

On August 1, at around 18:45 UTC, traffic was 10% lower than the previous week during swimming events that led to Australia’s gold in the women’s 4x200m freestyle relay. And on August 11, at around 07:00 UTC, traffic dropped 7% compared to the previous week during the women’s marathon with Australian participants.

Japan: One of the most significant drops in traffic in Japan during the Olympics occurred on August 6, around the time Fumita Kenichiro from Japan won gold in the men’s Greco-Roman wrestling 60kg final , followed by artistic swimming and the women’s table tennis competition, with traffic dropping 12% at 18:15 UTC.

On August 10, for several hours after 17:30 UTC, traffic in Japan was also lower than usual, with a drop of as much as 14%. This coincided with Japan’s gold medal win in the women’s javelin throw and the men’s breaking quarterfinals and semifinals.

Italy: During the event that gave Italy its first ever gold medal in artistic gymnastics, won by Alice D’Amato in the women’s balance beam event, traffic dropped 5% at around 10:45 UTC.

Netherlands: On the morning of July 28, the second full day of the Olympics, traffic in the Netherlands dropped by as much as 20% compared to the previous week, with Dutch athletes participating in several competitions.

On August 11, traffic dropped between 06:30 and 09:30 UTC, and by as much as 16% at 08:15 UTC, when Dutch runner Sifan Hassan won the gold medal in the women’s marathon.

South Korea: The Korean women’s archery team’s gold medal win on July 28 at 15:30 UTC led to an 8% drop in traffic, the most significant decrease noted in the country between July 26 and July 29.

On August 7, at 19:45 UTC, traffic was 9% lower during the Taekwondo gold medal event for Park Taejoon in the men’s -58kg (under 58kg) competition.

Brazil: Traffic in Brazil was 15% lower than the previous week on July 27 at around 19:30 UTC, surpassing the impact of the opening ceremony. This occurred as Brazilian swimmers Guilherme Costa and Maria Fernanda Costa competed in the men’s and women’s 400m freestyle events.

On August 2, traffic in Brazil was 5% lower at around 00:30 UTC during the men’s surfing quarterfinals with Gabriel Medina and was 8% lower at around 01:00 UTC during the women’s surfing quarterfinals with Tatiana Weston-Webb.

Cape Verde: David Pina won the first Olympic medal in boxing for this archipelago nation off the western coast of Africa. On August 4, the amateur boxer took the bronze medal, with traffic dropping 12% in the country at around 15:00 UTC during the match.

DNS trends for official Olympic websites by country

On July 22, before the Olympics began, we reported on the heightened interest in official Olympic websites based on request data from our 1.1.1.1 DNS resolver. France initially dominated with 24% of DNS traffic, followed by the UK (20%) and the US (17%). However, when the Olympics started, the US took the lead, maintaining it throughout the event.

Here are the top 10 countries that during the event had more DNS traffic for Olympics official websites. The US took the “gold,” France the “silver,” and the UK the “bronze”:
1. United States: 18%
2. France: 16%
3. United Kingdom: 10%
4. Germany: 7%
5. Brazil: 6%
6. Australia: 5%
7. Canada: 2%
8. Japan: 2%
9. India: 2%
10. Russian Federation: 2%

We observed that the US overtook France for the #1 spot a few days before the event began. France also dropped to third place behind Germany on July 27, the first full day of competitions, and again after August 2, though interestingly, it returned to #2 the day after the Olympics ended.

As shown in the following daily ranking chart, the UK was #3 before the event began but dropped to #4 on August 1. Australia’s highest ranking was #3 on July 29, and #4 on August 10 and 11. Brazil’s best days, ranking #3, were on July 24-25, and on July 30, 31, and August 1.

In terms of volume of DNS traffic to our 1.1.1.1 resolver, the first full week of Olympic events saw the highest volume of requests related to official Olympic websites, with a 637% increase compared to the week before the Olympics began. This trend of peak traffic during the first week was consistent across most countries, except for Germany, Spain, India, Italy, and Russia, where the final week generated more DNS resolver traffic.

On a daily basis, worldwide DNS traffic to official Olympics domains peaked on August 2, followed by August 4 and August 5, marking the start of the second and final week of the event. Below are the top 3 days with the highest DNS traffic to official Olympic websites in the top 3 countries by traffic volume:

• United States: July 30 (when the US women’s team won gold in artistic gymnastics and several medals were won in swimming), July 29, and August 5.
• France: July 31 (when swimmer Léon Marchand won gold in the men’s 200m butterfly final), July 29, and August 1.
• Germany: July 27 (when swimmer Lukas Maertens won gold in the men’s 400m freestyle final), August 8, and August 7.

Sports news sites

Looking at DNS traffic for sports news sites across different countries, the two weeks of the Olympics brought more traffic than any other week since June, including during the major football event, UEFA Euro 2024, held between June 14 and July 14. The Olympic weeks saw 17% more traffic than the week before the Olympics and 4% more DNS traffic than the best week of Euro 2024 (June 22-29).

From a daily perspective, the days with the highest traffic to sports news sites were August 10, August 3, July 28, and July 14 (related to the Euro 2024 final).

In the United States, NBC was not only the official broadcaster of the Olympics, but also created a dedicated website. NBC’s sports and NBC Olympics websites saw a significant rise in global DNS traffic, increasing up to 1,640% on July 28 compared to the previous week.

From official streaming services to Olympic sponsors

While the Olympics were still broadcast on several traditional national TV networks, streaming also played a key role, with Peacock TV (in the US and Canada) and Max (from Warner Bros. Discovery) in Europe offering several hours of Olympic content daily. The global traffic growth to these platforms was evident. On a weekly basis, DNS request traffic for streaming platforms featuring Olympic events grew by as much as 65%. Daily traffic peaked on July 30 (68% higher than the previous week), followed by July 29 and August 4. Peacock TV led over Max in terms of traffic.

Breakdancing, or “breaking,” made its first appearance in the 2024 Summer Olympics, leading to a surge in DNS traffic to breaking-related websites, particularly on August 9 and 10. Traffic peaked on August 9, with a 215% increase compared to the previous week, driven by viral moments like Australian Rachael Gunn’s performance.

How about the Paris Olympics sponsors? DNS traffic also increased, particularly in the early days of the event and the days leading up to it, with peak traffic on July 29 (15% higher than the previous week), followed by July 25 and 24 (the two days before the opening ceremony). Samsung saw the most significant impact during the early days of the Olympics, while Airbnb experienced a surge in traffic just before the opening ceremony (July 25).

Next stop: LA 2028

The closing ceremony concluded with a symbolic passing of the torch from Paris 2024 to Los Angeles 2028. Simone Biles handed the Olympic flag to Tom Cruise, who transported it Mission Impossible-style from Paris to a Venice Beach concert in LA featuring acts including the Red Hot Chili Peppers and Billie Eilish. Unsurprisingly, the official LA 2028 Olympics website saw a 1600% surge in DNS traffic on August 11 compared to the previous week.

DDoS attacks targeting Olympic-related and sponsor websites

As we observed during the 2024 elections, including the French elections, political parties are not the only targets of DDoS (Distributed Denial of Service) attacks during significant events. Attackers are aware of large global events. In a previous related blog post, we discussed attacks targeting French transportation and government websites. Below, let’s focus on Olympic-related and sponsor organizations.

In July, Cloudflare blocked a surge in DDoS attacks on Olympic partner websites – higher than in any other month of 2024. Daily DDoS attack requests jumped to 200 million, and in just 11 days of August, more DDoS requests (90 million) were blocked than in any full month in 2024 before the Olympics.

The largest spike in attacks occurred on July 29, targeting three sponsor websites simultaneously, with 84 million DDoS-related requests in a single day. The most intense DDoS attack peaked at 190,000 requests per second at 10:20 UTC.

The most significant specific attack was on the last day of the event, August 11, targeting a French transportation site. It lasted four minutes and peaked at over 500,000 requests per second at 05:09 UTC.

As highlighted in our Q2 DDoS report, most DDoS attacks are short-lived, as seen in the two mentioned attacks. While a 500,000 request per second (rps) attack is not large for Cloudflare, it can be devastating for websites not equipped to handle such traffic levels.

Analyzing the same pool of Olympic partner websites that use Cloudflare, total requests (including legitimate traffic and attacks) rose in July, reaching 4.2 billion—27% more than in May and 11% more than in June.

Rise in “Olympics” and “Paris 2024” emails

Major events often attract attention in the email realm, including spam and malicious emails, and the Olympics were no exception. From January 2024 through August 11, Cloudflare’s Cloud Email Security service processed over 1.7 million emails containing “Olympics” or “Paris 2024” in the subject. More than half of these emails (890,000) were sent during the Olympics (July 26 to August 11), with the highest volume (150,000 messages) on July 26, the day of the opening ceremony.

The week of July 22-28, coinciding with the first few days of the Olympics, saw a 304% increase in such emails compared to the previous week, and an astonishing 3111% increase compared to the busiest week in January.

Although the Olympics period (July 26 - August 11) was busy in terms of related emails, the percentages of spam and malicious messages were lower than before. However, over 6,200 emails were classified as spam (0.7%), and just 248 were identified as malicious or phishing (0.07%).

As noted in a previous blog post, since January 1, 2024, spam accounted for 1.3% of all emails with “Olympics” or “Paris 2024” in the subject, while malicious emails made up 0.1%. In a sample of 1,000 emails, roughly 13 would be spam and 1 would be malicious. The peak for malicious Olympic-related emails occurred during the week of May 6, with 0.6% classified as malicious. Although there was a decline after this peak, rates increased slightly in July, reaching 0.4% on July 8. Despite the surge in volume during the week of July 22, only 0.05% of emails were malicious.

Simone Biles and Snoop Dogg popular via email

Famous individuals are often used by attackers for email phishing. Among the athletes shining at the event, Simone Biles generated the most emails, but very few were spam or malicious. Biles led other popular names during the event, including those named below, ordered by number of email messages: Katie Ledecky (US), Imane Khelif (Algeria), Novak Djokovic (Serbia), Steph Curry (US), and Léon Marchand (France).

Since July 1, over 160,000 emails processed by Cloudflare’s Cloud Email Security service have included “Simone Biles” or “Biles” in the subject, with only 0.5% considered spam and 0.01% classified as malicious. (And 97% of those 160,000 emails were sent since the Olympics started on July 26.) The most emails were sent on August 5, followed by August 2 and July 28. Spam percentage peaked on July 24, with 5% of all emails considered spam.

Among famous attendees, Snoop Dogg topped the list ahead of other US team supporters like Martha Stewart, Flava Flav, and Jason Kelce. Since July, there have been over 6,600 emails with “Snoop Dogg” in the subject, with 40 classified as spam (0.6%) and 4 as malicious (0.06%).

Published on July 30, 2024

From an opening ceremony to remember to Simone Biles performance impact

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 the TV broadcast, leading to noticeable traffic drops similar to those observed during Euro 2024 – we’ve seen that national TV broadcast events usually come with drops in Internet traffic.

The Olympics are more than just sporting events – they are filled with inspiring moments and stories that capture global attention in real time, and create stories that live on. Significant traffic dips during the ceremony coincided with performances by Celine Dion and Lady Gaga, the lighting of the Olympic cauldron, and John Lennon’s “Imagine” performed by Juliette Armanet. Here is a breakdown of the top five traffic drops compared to the previous week that occurred during the ceremony, detailing the events occurring at those times. Our data provides insights with 15-minute granularity.

During the opening ceremony on July 26, between 17:30 to 21:20 UTC, traffic in France was noticeably lower than the previous week, with losses between 15% and 20%. However, there were moments with smaller drops. For example, at 19:30 UTC, traffic only fell by 4% during the middle of the boat parade of athletes on the Seine River. Right after the event, at 21:45 UTC, traffic increased by as much as 8% compared to the previous week.

The opening ceremony also resulted in a higher mobile share of traffic than usual in France. At 20:45 UTC, close to the end of the ceremony, the mobile share of Internet traffic was 61%, up from 57% the previous week.

Parisians leaving town before the Olympics

With the Olympics in Paris, many locals left the city, either for vacations or quieter places, while tourists arrived for the games. Our data shows that two French regions, Île-de-France, where Paris is located, and Grand Est, east of Paris, experienced the most significant traffic drops. The chart below illustrates daily traffic to these regions, with a noticeable decline visible during the weekend before the Olympics in Île-de-France.

Analyzing the percentage change in request traffic from the previous week, Île-de-France saw its largest drops in the first week of July (July 1-7), with a 15% decrease, and the week before the Olympics started, with an 8% decrease. Interestingly, there was no percentage change in traffic during the week of the Olympics (July 22-28) – that was also the week when most visitors for the Olympics started to arrive.

The daily share of mobile device traffic from France also reveals shifts in typical patterns, with increases noted especially after the June 30 weekend, indicative of vacation periods and leisure Internet use. Mobile device traffic peaked during the first Olympic weekend, reaching 53% on July 26, the day of the opening ceremony – higher than any previous Friday since June. On Sunday, July 28, mobile device traffic peaked at 58%, the highest since June.

Impact to Internet traffic outside of France

Globally, Internet traffic variations were less pronounced than in France. However, on July 26, the day of the opening ceremony, a noticeable global drop occurred during the event. This was particularly evident during two key moments previously highlighted: during song performances at 20:15 UTC, traffic dropped 3% compared to the previous week, and around the end of the ceremony, at 21:15 UTC, it dropped 2%.

Expanding our view to other countries, moments of significant drops in traffic during the opening ceremony were clearly visible. Below is a summary list of 30 countries selected based on their tally of Summer Olympic medals.

Additionally, the world map below highlights the countries that experienced notable Internet traffic impacts during the opening ceremony.

(Source: Cloudflare; created with Datawrapper)

Outside Europe, the countries with the most substantial drops were New Zealand (-9%), Uzbekistan (-12%), Argentina (-13%), and Mongolia -(20%), all experiencing greater declines than those in Europe.​

Significant moments at the games: from Simone Biles to Olympic records

Below, we highlight specific Olympic events affecting Internet traffic, starting from the first full competition day on Saturday, July 27, 2024.

United States: The artistic gymnastics competition featuring four-time Olympic gold medalist Simone Biles notably impacted US Internet traffic more than the opening ceremony. On July 26-28, traffic dipped most significantly during Biles’ events. At 10:00 UTC, concurrent with her beam routine, traffic was already 4% lower than the previous week. It dropped by 6% at 10:45 UTC during her floor and vault routines.

France: French swimmer Léon Marchand’s gold medal and Olympic record-setting performance in the men’s 400-meter individual medley on July 28 had the most significant impact in the host nation. Traffic fell by 17% at 18:30 UTC during his event. However, as we noted above, the opening ceremony drove a bigger drop in traffic.

Australia: During Mollie O’Callaghan’s victory in the women’s 200m freestyle on July 29, at around 20:00 UTC, Australian traffic was 5% lower than the previous week This was larger than during the opening ceremony, which saw a 2% drop.

South Korea: The Korean women’s archery team’s gold medal win on July 28 at 15:30 UTC led to an 8% drop in traffic, the most significant decrease noted in the country from July 26 to July 29.

Brazil: Traffic in Brazil was15% lower than the previous week on July 27 at around 19:30 UTC, surpassing the opening ceremony’s impact. This occurred as Brazilian swimmers Guilherme Costa and Maria Fernanda Costa competed in the men’s and women’s 400 m freestyle events.

DNS trends to official Olympic websites by country

As we've seen, on July 22, before the Olympics started, we reported on the heightened interest in official Olympic websites based on request data from our 1.1.1.1 DNS resolver. We noted France’s dominance with 24% of DNS traffic to official Olympic websites, followed by the UK (20%) and the US (17%). However, the start of the Olympics marked a shift, with the US taking the lead.

On the first full day of competitions, July 27, the US led with 16% of all DNS request traffic to official Olympic sites, showcasing a widespread interest across various countries during the Olympics. The dynamic world map featured at the top of this report provides a visualization of the evolution of percentages throughout the days of the Paris 2024 Olympics.

Here are the top 10 countries with the highest shares of DNS request traffic for the first full day of competitions, July 27, to Olympic sites (percentages rounded):

1. United States: 16%
2. Germany: 12%
3. France: 9%
4. Vietnam: 9%
5. Brazil: 5%
6. Australia: 5%
7. United Kingdom: 4%
8. Netherlands: 4%
9. Canada: 3%
10. South Africa: 2%

Growth in interest as the Olympics drew closer

Global daily DNS request traffic to official Olympic websites began climbing to the highest levels seen year to date starting on July 23, showing a steady increase. It peaked on July 28, the second full day of events, with a fivefold (509%) increase from the previous week. On the opening ceremony day, traffic was already 110% higher than the previous week.

Country-specific peaks included the US, where traffic to Olympic sites surged 719% on July 28, coinciding with Simone Biles’ first competition day. In France, traffic peaked on the same day with a 391% increase, and in Germany, it skyrocketed by 2300% on July 27.

The evolving DNS ranking of Olympic site traffic by country reveals that from July 19, the US overtook France. Also, Germany ascended to the #2 spot on July 27, the first full day of competitions, while Australia climbed to #4 on July 28, and Canada’s peak day was also July 28.

Railway attacks on opening ceremony day cause surge in traffic

The opening ceremony day, July 26, was also disrupted by railway arson attacks in France, affecting the 800,000 passengers on the high-speed railway system. At 10:00 UTC, there was a significant surge in DNS traffic to public transportation websites, including high-speed railway services. Traffic spiked by 2000% compared to the previous week as users accessed websites to check updates.

DDoS attacks: always around

As we’ve observed with elections in 2024, including the French elections, political parties are not the only targets of DDoS (Distributed Denial of Service) attacks during significant events. While we haven’t seen any coordinated flow of major DDoS attacks targeting services potentially used during the Olympics in France, we have observed a few incidents.

A generally used French government website was targeted by a DDoS attack on July 29, 2024, lasting nine minutes and peaked at 207,000 requests per second at 20:34 UTC.

Before the Olympics began, a national transportation website was also targeted by a smaller DDoS attack, lasting only a couple of minutes and peaking at 10,000 requests per second on July 21 at 10:20 UTC.

As highlighted in our Q2 DDoS report, most DDoS attacks are short-lived, as exemplified by the two mentioned attacks. Also, 81% of HTTP DDoS attacks peak at under 50,000 requests per second (rps), and only 7% reach between 100,000 and 250,000 rps. While a 10,000 rps attack might seem minor to Cloudflare, it can be devastating for websites not equipped to handle such high levels of traffic.

“Olympics” and “Paris 2024” emails on the rise

From another cybersecurity perspective, major events often attract phishing and spam, and the Olympics are no exception. From January 2024 through late July, Cloudflare’s Cloud Email Security service processed over a million emails containing “Olympics” or “Paris 2024” in the subject. During the week of July 22-28, coinciding with the first few days of the Olympics, there was a 304% increase in such emails compared to the previous week and a staggering 3111% increase compared to the busiest week in January.

Regarding unwanted messages, spam accounted for 1.5% of all emails with “Olympics” or “Paris 2024” in the subject, while malicious emails made up 0.1% since January 2024. This means that in a sample of 1000 emails, roughly 15 would be spam and 1 would be malicious. The peak for malicious Olympic-related emails occurred the week of May 6, with 0.6% classified as malicious. Although there was a decline after this peak, rates increased slightly in July, reaching 0.4% on July 8. Despite the surge in volume during the week of July 22, only 0.05% of emails were malicious.

That same week, when the Olympics started, also saw an increase in spam emails to over 2%, the highest since the 7% peak the week of June 24.

Published on July 22, 2024

Countdown to Paris 2024 Olympics: France leads in web interest

(This content was also published on The Cloudflare Blog)

Here we analyze some pre-Olympics trends, from the popularity of Olympic websites by country to the increase in Olympics-related spam and malicious emails.

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 contributing at least 1% to DNS traffic to Olympic sites (percentages rounded):

1. France: 24%
2. The UK: 20%
3. The US: 17%
4. Brazil: 5%
5. Germany: 4%
6. Russia: 3%
7. Australia: 2%
8. Japan: 2%
9. India: 2%
10. Spain: 1%
11. Ireland: 1%
12. Canada: 1%
13. South Africa: 1%
14. Netherlands: 1%
15. Italy: 1%

Days with the highest “Olympic” spikes

Analyzing the evolution of DNS traffic to official Olympic websites since January 2024, we’ve noted multiple spikes associated with specific Olympic events or ticket sales. The following ranking offers a global perspective via our 1.1.1.1 resolver, illustrating that as the event draws near and Paris readies itself, more recent dates are emerging prominently in the data.

Top 5 days with more DNS traffic to Olympic official sites in 2024:

• January 31: Eve of the 2024 Winter Youth Olympics closing ceremony in Gangwon, South Korea.
• April 17: Over 250,000 new tickets for Olympic Games Paris 2024 went on sale—one of the last opportunities to get tickets to the main events.
• January 19: Opening ceremony of the 2024 Winter Youth Olympics (South Korea).
• June 26: One month before the opening ceremony; the Paris 2024 Main Operations Center starts full games operation; in Paris, areas like the Champ-de-Mars became full occupied by the Olympics; in the US, tickets for NBC's Opening Ceremony coverage for the Paris 2024 in IMAX theaters went on sale.
• July 1: Preparations in Paris with street and bridges closures and road signs added indicating fast track routes for Olympic related vehicles.

April 10 spikes in Germany, Russia and the US

On April 10, 2024, DNS traffic spikes were observed not just in France but also notably in Germany, Russia, and the US, among others. Despite France leading in overall DNS traffic to Olympic sites since January, as we saw on the world map, this particular day saw the largest spikes originating from other countries. These spikes were most prominent from Germany, Russia, the US, the UK, France, Brazil, and Australia, in that order.

What caused these spikes? Several press conferences related to the Olympics took place that day. One major announcement, covered globally, declared that for the first time, the Olympics would offer prize money, with track and field gold medalists receiving $50,000. The following chart illustrates the spike in DNS traffic in these countries on that day.

France’s trends: interest in tickets comes first

In France, the host nation, ticket sale days significantly influenced DNS traffic to official Olympic websites. The most obvious spike occurred on February 8, 2024, marking the start of the first phase of ticket sales for 2024, called the “Paris 2024 official ticketing website surprise releases.” On that day, daily DNS traffic was double that of the previous week. A significant surge was also observed at 10:00 local time, coinciding with the ticket release, which saw an hourly DNS traffic increase of 398% compared to the previous week.

The week of March 3, 2024, saw the highest DNS traffic to Olympic-related sites in France so far. The most significant increase occurred on March 4, the day the “Athletics Special” ticket sales began for events at the Stade de France, which also coincided with the unveiling of the Olympic poster. On this day, daily DNS traffic rose by 45% compared to the previous week. Other notable periods included the weeks of May 12 and May 19, when the Olympic torch arrived in France and started its journey through various cities. April 14 also marked a critical day, offering one of the last chances to purchase 250,000 tickets for major events.

“Olympics” and “Paris 2024” emails on the rise

From a cybersecurity perspective, as major events often attract phishing and spam, we’ve analyzed email trends related to the Olympics—recently we did the same for the Biden vs Trump US presidential debate. From January 2024 up to late-July, Cloudflare’s Cloud Email Security service processed well over half a million emails containing “Olympics” or “Paris 2024” in the subject. The week of July 15 saw the highest number of such emails, marking a 694% increase compared to the busiest week in January.

Regarding unwanted messages, spam accounted for 1.5% of all emails with “Olympics” or “Paris 2024” in the subject, while malicious emails made up 0.2%. This means that in a sample of 1000 emails, roughly 15 would be spam and about 2 would be malicious. The week with the highest percentage of malicious Olympic-related emails was May 6, with 0.6% classified as malicious. Declining after that peak, it ticked back up in July, to 0.4% on July 8.

Furthermore, the week of June 24 witnessed the highest proportion of spam emails for the year so far, at 7% of all emails.

As the Olympics opening ceremony approaches, we expect the volume of related emails, and the proportion of malicious and spam emails, to increase. We’ll provide an update of the first days of the Olympics next week.

— João Tomé and Jorge Pacheco