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‘State of the Internet’ report
03/06/08
Akamai
Technologies has released findings of its inaugural ‘State of the
Internet’ report.
During the
first quarter of 2008 Akamai observed attack traffic originating
from 125 unique countries around the world. China and the United
States were the two largest attack traffic sources, accounting for
some 30 percent of this traffic in total. Akamai observed attack
traffic targeted at 23 unique network ports. Many of the ports that
saw the highest levels of attack traffic were targeted by worms,
viruses, and bots that spread across the Internet several years ago.
A number of major network “events” occurred during the first quarter
that impacted millions of Internet users. At the end of January,
undersea cable cuts in the Mediterranean Sea severed Internet
connectivity between the Middle East and Europe, drastically slowing
communications. De-peering events between major networks impacted
Internet communications for selected Internet users in the United
States and Europe for a two-week period. A routing change by a
telecommunications provider spread across the Internet resulting in
a popular Internet video sharing site to go offline for several
hours.
Akamai also observed that, from a global perspective, South Korea
had the highest measured levels of “high broadband” (>5 Mbps)
connectivity. In the United States, Delaware topped the list, with
over 60 percent of connections to Akamai occurring at 5 Mbps or
greater. At the other end of the bandwidth spectrum, Rwanda and the
Solomon Islands topped the list of slowest countries, with 95
percent or more of the connections to Akamai from both countries
occurring at below 256 Kbps. In the United States, Washington State
and Virginia turned in the highest percentages of sub-256 Kbps
connections. However, in contrast to the international measurements,
these states only saw 21 and 18 percent of connections below 256
Kbps respectively.
“Akamai is in a unique position to provide an in-depth look at the
current state of the Internet and illuminate emerging trends,” said
Brad Rinklin, vice president of marketing, Akamai. “Our hope is that
this report will serve as a key indicator on important developments
with the Internet, and provide guidance to companies launching
initiatives that leverage the Internet as a primary delivery
mechanism.”
The report
includes data on the origins of attack traffic, network outages and
de-peering events, as well as a look at broadband connectivity by
geography. In addition to providing a quarterly summary, Akamai will
document trends seen in this data over time.
Akamai’s report will also aggregate publicly available news and
information about notable events seen throughout the quarter,
including Denial of Service attacks, Web site hacks, and network
events.
The current
“State of the Internet” report is available for download at
www.akamai.com/stateoftheinternet.
Nick Gibson, editor
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