'State of the Internet' assessed

Internet attacks came from 201 different countries in the second quarter, up from 68 countries in the first quarter, according to a report released Thursday.

Akamai Technologies' quarterly "State of the Internet" report compiles data about the online world, from Internet attacks to average connection speeds across the globe.

Among the 201 countries now seen as the source of malware and other Internet threats, the U.S., China, and South Korea accounted for more than half of the attacks in the second quarter.

Blaming the Conficker worm on the majority of the assaults, Akamai discovered attacks on 4,100 unique ports, with 10 specific ports hit in about 90 percent of the cases. One specific port, 445, used for Microsoft Directory Services, has proven especially vulnerable and was compromised in 68 percent of the attacks, allowing hackers to invade computers with this port open, Akamai said.

The report also examined connection speeds.

Several countries saw their connection speeds drop from the previous quarter, with the overall global average falling 11 percent to 1.5Mbps. Only 19 percent of the connections throughout the globe managed speeds greater than 5Mbps, a slight decline from the prior quarter.

Among all countries, South Korea came in first place with an average speed of 11Mbps, while Eritrea was last at 42Kbps. The U.S. was 18th on the global list, reaching average connection speeds of 4.2Mbps.

Akamai found that within the U.S., many states also saw connection speeds fall. Arizona's average speed dropped 27 percent from the first quarter. New Hampshire enjoyed the fastest connection in the country at 6.4Mbps, while Delaware fell to second place at 6.3Mbps, down from 7.2Mbps in the prior quarter. Overall, the East Coast led the nation with the fastest speeds of any region.

Akamai caches Internet content for its customers, allowing it to monitor traffic through the Net. The company uses the data from its Internet monitoring to compile its quarterly reports.