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Scaling Security Insights: how we achieved a 10x increase in global scanning capacity

Cloudflare enhances Security Insights, achieving 10x scanning capacity to improve security for all customers.

06 / 12 / 2026Source: Security
Scaling Security Insights: how we achieved a 10x increase in global scanning capacity
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News

What happened

Cloudflare has successfully scaled its Security Insights system, achieving a tenfold increase in scanning capacity. This improvement is crucial for providing timely security insights to all customers, especially as automated attacks become more prevalent.

The Cloudflare Security Insights system now processes over 120 scans per second, significantly enhancing its ability to detect security risks and misconfigurations. By optimizing its architecture and processes, Cloudflare has doubled the scanning frequency for all accounts, ensuring that potential vulnerabilities are identified more quickly. This upgrade addresses previous limitations where scans were infrequent and often optional for free plan users, thereby improving overall security for millions of accounts.

Release at a glance

Key facts from the announcement.

Version

Not specified

Product

Cloudflare Security Insights

Released

Not specified

Platform

Cloudflare

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Changes at a glance

What's new

The Security Insights system now processes over 120 scans per second, a significant increase from the previous rate of 10 scans per second. This enhancement allows for more frequent scans across all accounts, zones, and DNS records, providing timely insights into potential security issues.

Breaking changes

No breaking changes were reported in the source material.

Analysis

In detail

Cloudflare's Security Insights system has increased its throughput from 10 scans per second to over 120 scans per second, allowing for more frequent security assessments. This scaling was achieved without additional hardware by optimizing Kafka consumers, Postgres queries, and the internal API.

The previous scanning frequency was every week or two, leaving a window for undetected security risks. With the new system, scans are now more frequent, addressing the growing risks associated with automated attacks and ensuring that all accounts, including those on free plans, receive regular security checks.

Key takeaways

The most important facts from this update.

Increased scanning capacity to over 120 scans per second.
Doubled scanning frequency for all Cloudflare accounts.
Automatic scanning now enabled for all accounts, including free plans.
Optimized Kafka consumers and Postgres queries for better performance.
Implemented parallel processing and a 'slow lane'/'fast lane' system for message handling.

Why it matters

This scaling of Cloudflare's Security Insights is vital for self-hosters and homelab builders who rely on timely security assessments. With the rise in automated attacks, having a robust and responsive security scanning system is essential for maintaining the integrity of their infrastructure.

Homelab impact

Homelab operators using Cloudflare's services will benefit from the increased scanning frequency, which helps in identifying misconfigurations and vulnerabilities more rapidly. This is particularly important as the threat landscape evolves and automated attacks become more sophisticated.

Users should consider reviewing their current configurations and ensuring that automatic scanning is enabled to take full advantage of these improvements. The enhanced throughput means that even accounts with a large number of assets will receive timely insights, reducing the risk of prolonged exposure to security threats.

What to do next

Practical steps for operators running self-hosted stacks.

Review your Cloudflare account settings to ensure automatic scanning is enabled.
Monitor the performance of your services with the new scanning frequency.
Stay informed about potential security risks identified by the Security Insights.
Consider optimizing your own infrastructure based on the insights provided.
Test any changes in a staging environment before applying them to production.

This article summarises reporting from Cloudflare Blog. Visit the original post for release notes, changelogs, and full technical documentation.

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