It's pretty disappointing that the author (writing in 2025) says "perhaps to maintain its status as the world’s largest botnet operator," and links to a Spamhaus report from Q1 of 2020.[0]

If you check the most recent version of the report from Spamhaus (Jan to June 2025)[1], Cloudflare is nowhere to be seen, and Digital Ocean, who they recommend as a Cloudflare alternative is listed as third largest botnet host in the world.

Looking back through the historical reports this isn't a new phenomenon, in Q4 of 2022 Digital Ocean was ranked #2 and Cloudflare was down at #17.

[0]https://www.spamhaus.org/resource-hub/botnet-c-c/botnet-thre...

[1]https://www.spamhaus.org/resource-hub/botnet-c-c/botnet-thre...