Akamai Releases Inaugural 'State of the Internet' Report

Akamai Technologies, one of the leading providers of rich media, dynamic transactions and enterprise applications online, has announced the release of its inaugural “State of the Internet” report.

Beginning with the January to March 2008 time period (first quarter), Akamai will be publishing a quarterly “State of the Internet” report extrapolated from data gathered across Akamai’s global server network. This report will include 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, Website hacks, and network events.

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During the first quarter of 2008, for example, 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 going offline for several hours.

India among Top 10 in Internet attack originating countries

India contributes 2.53 percent to global attack traffic and ranks among the global top ten in terms of countries with traffic attack origin. 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 traffic sources, accounting for some 30 percent of traffic in total as mentioned earlier. The top 10 countries were the source of approximately three quarters (75 percent) of the attacks measured. India was placed 10th in terms of countries where the attack traffic originated.

Internet Outage in January affects India in a major way

The most noteworthy Internet outage in the first quarter of 2008 resulted from several undersea cables in the Mediterranean Sea being severed. Two cables were severed in late January, and two more went out of service in early February. These cable cuts significantly impacted Internet connectivity into and out of countries in the Middle East. According to data collected by Renesys, Egypt, Pakistan, Kuwait, and India had the most networks impacted by the cable cut. Data posted to the Renesys blog showed that over 1,000 customer networks in Egypt were impacted, with over 900 customer networks in Pakistan seeing problems; nearly 500 in India and almost 300 in Kuwait.

Akamai also observed that from a global perspective, South Korea had the highest measured levels of “high broadband” (>5 Mbps) connectivity. 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.

“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.”

Akamai is planning to release its second quarter “State of the Internet” report in August.