The Map That Changed
The cybersecurity map of Q1 2025 brought a surprise: Germany, previously ranked 5th, jumped to first place on the list of most attacked countries in just one year. Turkey moved even more dramatically: from 13th place straight to 2nd. China, which previously led the list, fell back to third place. Hungarian businesses are right in the middle of this new red zone, in the heart of Europe, where attacks are becoming increasingly frequent.
This is no coincidence. Cloudflare's 2025 data shows a clear pattern: Europe, and especially Central Europe, is becoming an increasingly attractive target for cyber attackers. The question is why, and what do these trends mean for a Hungarian small business that might never have thought it could be a target?
The New Meaning of Geography
Hungary isn't just in the center of Europe on the map—we're a digital connecting link as well. We're a transit country for much international data traffic, a bridge between East and West. This is a fantastic opportunity economically, but from a security perspective, it also represents vulnerability.
The difference between attack sources and targets is particularly instructive. According to 2025 data, most attacks originate from Hong Kong, Indonesia, and Argentina—those parts of the world where botnets are built, where compromised, neglected IoT devices, routers, and cameras are concentrated. But the targets? Europe leads the list: Germany, Turkey, and our region. The logic is simple: attacks are launched where it's cheap and easy, but they strike where the money is.
This is where Hungary's situation comes into play. A Hungarian small business owner might never imagine that an Indonesian IoT camera, left with a weak password years ago, would participate in a DDoS attack against them. But that's exactly the reality. Global botnet networks can attack from anywhere, and European companies—regardless of size—can all be targets.
The Vulnerability of Hungarian SMEs
There's a phenomenon particularly characteristic of the Hungarian and Central European market: the cascade effect. Many smaller companies host with local Hungarian hosting providers. These providers often lack serious DDoS protection. When they're attacked—and Cloudflare data shows 6.9 million attacks hit hosting providers in Q1 2025—all websites hosted with them become unreachable simultaneously.
This problem is particularly severe because most small businesses choose hosting providers based on simple criteria: price, Hungarian language support, perhaps a recommendation. But rarely does anyone think about what happens if the provider itself is attacked. One attack, and dozens or even hundreds of websites go down at once.
The other problem is the gap between digitalization and security. E-commerce is growing rapidly in Hungary, more and more services are going online, and companies' digital presence is continuously strengthening. But security awareness hasn't kept pace with this development. Many companies build their online presence with security as an afterthought, if considered at all. The "we won't be attacked, we're too small" mentality is still widespread—while statistics show exactly the opposite.
The Hidden Cost of Language Barriers
There's an aspect rarely discussed openly, but practically a significant obstacle: language. Most international security solutions communicate, document, and provide support in English. For a Hungarian small business where the IT manager might speak English but the owner or other team members don't necessarily—this is a serious disadvantage.
When an attack happens and English error messages and security alerts arrive, valuable time is lost in translation and interpretation. And as we know, with a 35-second attack, there's no time for someone to translate and explain what's happening. This is one reason why more Hungarian companies are turning to partners like Gloster Cloud, where they receive support for Cloudflare solutions in Hungarian.
Competitors and Black Friday Victims
Cloudflare's survey found that among companies that knew or suspected who attacked them, 39 percent identified a competitor. This is particularly interesting in the European context, where competitor attacks are becoming increasingly common in e-commerce.
During Black Friday and the Christmas season, this phenomenon is especially pronounced. Two competing webshops, both preparing for months for the big season. One rents a botnet for a few thousand dollars and launches a 30-minute attack precisely during peak traffic when the most customers are online. The target goes down, customers can't shop, they move to another site. That other site happens to be the attacking competitor.
This isn't science fiction. This is the dark side of 21st-century business competition. Anonymous, difficult to prove, and unfortunately increasingly common. In the Hungarian market, where e-commerce is still growing and competition is getting fiercer, this type of "digital sabotage" is a real threat.
What Does This Mean in Practice?
A Hungarian SaaS startup is preparing for international expansion. They know security is important, but the budget is tight; they feel too small to be serious targets. Then when they launch their first major international campaign, the first serious attack arrives. Without protection, this means hours of downtime, revenue loss, and—worse—reputation damage. Potential customers trying out the service see it's slow or unavailable. And they don't come back.
If they prepared in advance—implementing Cloudflare protection, for example—the attack is automatically blocked. The system detects malicious traffic, distributes it across the global network, and legitimate users receive an uninterrupted experience. The owners might learn about it from a notification, but business continues smoothly.
The Hungarian Solution at International Level
Gloster Cloud as a Cloudflare partner works well for Hungarian businesses precisely because it combines both worlds. There's global protection—388 terabits of capacity, presence in over 330 cities worldwide, including Budapest servers. And alongside it, Hungarian language support, local experience, experts who understand Hungarian market specifics.
Because it matters that when you set up security rules, you can talk to someone who understands local challenges. Someone who knows how GDPR works in practice, understands the limitations of Hungarian hosting providers, and can recommend appropriate configuration for specific needs. When an attack happens—because sooner or later it will—there's someone who can explain in Hungarian what happened, how severe it was, and what can be learned from it.
Europe in the Crosshairs
The pattern is clear. Germany jumped four places, Turkey eleven places. These aren't coincidences. Europe, especially rapidly growing, digitalizing regions, has become targeted. Attackers know the money is here, the growing online businesses are here, and there are many companies here that haven't taken security seriously enough yet.
Hungary is precisely in this zone. Not big enough to have serious protection by default, but attractive enough as a target for attackers to be interested. The question is only whether we prepare in time, or wait until we learn from our own painful experience.
European business? You need European-level protection! With Gloster Cloud's Cloudflare solutions, your Hungarian business prepares for next-generation threats.
