Cloudflare has announced that customers on its Free plan can now receive real-time alerts about HTTP DDoS attacks automatically detected and mitigated by the company's systems. Previously, these alerts were available only to Pro plan users or higher. The announcement extends the DDoS alerts feature to Free plan users. Cloudflare's global network of data centers helps detect and mitigate DDoS attacks by routing traffic through its network and analyzing it for potential threats. Once an attack is detected, a real-time mitigation rule is automatically generated to block the attack requests while allowing legitimate user requests to pass through. Users can customize the settings of the mitigation system using the HTTP DDoS Managed Ruleset.