In what can only be looked at with "good news/really bad news" perspective, a new report on the state of the Internet claims global connection speeds are on the rise but so, too, are distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks.
The report from Internet content delivery network company Akamai details the steady increase in Web connection speeds the world is seeing, but also warns that DDoS attacks increased among its customers 50 percent in 2013 from 2012.
With regard to the faster flow of the information superhighway, the report claims the global average peak connection speeds increased 38 percent in Q4 2013 compared with the fourth quarter of 2012. The global Internet average speed is now 3.8 Mbps.
For those in the U.S., the average connection speed is now 10.0 Mbps, a gain of 2 percent over 2012, with Virginia holding the highest average connection speed at 14.4 Mbps. East Coast states actually held nine of the top 10 spots for fastest connection speeds.
"We've reached a significant milestone in the improvement of average connection speeds," explained David Belson, editor of the report, in a statement released by Akamai. "The fact that all of the top 10 countries/regions' average connection speeds are now at or exceeding the high broadband threshold -- and continued strong growth in countries like South Korea and Ireland -- is indicative of the progress that's being made in broadband penetration. It's reasonable to expect these promising trends will continue to be reflected in future reports."
On the down side, the report claimed that there's also been a sharp increase in Internet-borne network attacks. The number of DDoS attacks climbed to 1,153 in 2013, a 50 percent increase from the number of attacks in 2012.
The report also broke down what are the most frequent targets of these attacks, saying the enterprise and commerce industries head the list of the most heavily targeted DDoS attacks. The two industries combined for almost 70 percent of the reported attacks during the fourth quarter of 2013.
China continued as the country that originated the most observed attack traffic, as it did in 2012. Its quarter-over-quarter growth went from 35 percent to 43 percent for 2013. The United States saw the next highest percentage increase in attack traffic in 2013 with a 19 percent increase.
