New York, Feb 17, 2026, 18:06 ET — After-hours
- Cloudflare shares dipped in after-hours trading, despite the company rolling out a cybersecurity tie-up with Mastercard.
- The companies are rolling out tools to score “internet-facing” risk, giving customers the ability to activate defenses straight from a single dashboard.
- Cloudflare’s service-status page drew attention from traders following a series of datacenter and certificate alerts earlier in the day.
Cloudflare dropped 1.1% after hours Tuesday, following news that the company will partner with Mastercard to develop cyber defense tools for small businesses and critical infrastructure. Shares last changed hands at $193.68, moving between $189.57 and $201.22 during the regular session.
Companies are shopping for “attack surface” tools these days, and here’s why: security teams don’t always have the full picture of their digital assets, from domains to apps and third-party vendors. With so many blind spots across these sprawling online estates, hacks slip through the cracks — and that’s driving new investment in this space.
Cloudflare’s move is a chance to see if its security tools can extend their reach beyond just large enterprise clients. Investors, for their part, want to see growth drivers that don’t rely on occasional traffic spikes.
Cloudflare plans to roll out a bundled service that pairs its Application Security lineup with Mastercard’s Recorded Future and RiskRecon—these scan for exposed assets and pinpoint vulnerabilities across a company’s web footprint. The companies are pitching a dashboard where users see an A–F letter grade for security, plus options to activate defenses like a web application firewall, encryption, and automated protections directly from Cloudflare’s platform. “A cyberattack is more than a technical hurdle. It is an existential threat,” said Stephanie Cohen, Cloudflare’s chief strategy officer. 1
American Banker likened the system to handing out a cyber “report card” to smaller businesses and public-sector organizations, assigning grades based on control reviews, vulnerabilities in software, and exposure to third-party threats. “Improving critical infrastructure cybersecurity and reducing cyber risk is an ongoing, challenging mission,” said Dan Cimpean, director of the Romanian National Cyber Security Directorate, an early participant in the partnership, according to the report. 2
Cloudflare, known for providing tools to enhance speed and security for websites and apps, faces competition from Akamai and Fastly in this space. Security offerings now play a larger role in Cloudflare’s strategy, as more clients look to consolidate vendors.
Cloudflare’s status page on Tuesday pointed to higher-than-normal HTTP-request latency out of its Newark, New Jersey datacenter, while also reporting that certificate issuance via Google Trust Services was down due to an outage at Google. 3
Just a week ago, Cloudflare projected annual sales ahead of Wall Street’s expectations, pointing to AI-fueled internet traffic and rising security requirements as key drivers. 4
The deal is only at the “intent to develop” stage for now, and neither company is giving a schedule for when any commercial launch might happen. Investors are left waiting to find out if the A–F scoring system and automated fixes will actually drive sales, or if the offering can break through in a security sector already packed with heavyweight competitors.
Now, attention turns to Cloudflare’s slot at RSAC in San Francisco, March 23–24. Traders are angling for any specifics on products or timing clues—security vendors tend to use the event to unveil new features or highlight recent customer gains. 5
