
January 23, 2013 Akamai Releases Third Quarter 2012 State of the Internet Report
Contacts
Rob Morton
Media Relations
617-444-3641
rmorton@akamai.com or Natalie Temple
Investor Relations
617-444-3635
ntemple@akamai.com
More than 680 million unique IP addresses connected to Akamai Intelligent Platform
Observed attack traffic originated from more than 180 countries or regions
Observed Distributed Denial of Service attacks against banking industry reached total traffic levels of 65 Gbps
High broadband (>10 Mbps) adoption reached 11 percent and broadband (>4 Mbps) adoption reached 41 percent globally
CAMBRIDGE, MA January 23, 2013 Akamai Technologies, Inc. (NASDAQ: AKAM), the leading cloud platform for helping enterprises provide secure, high-performing user experiences on any device, anywhere, today released its Third Quarter, 2012 State of the Internet report. Based on data gathered from the Akamai Intelligent Platform , the report provides insight into key global statistics including connection speeds, attack traffic, and network connectivity and availability, among many others.
In addition, the Third Quarter, 2012 State of the Internet report includes an analysis of the Operation Ababil DDoS attacks against the banking industry in the United States and an examination of mobile browser usage by network connection type collected via Akamai IO. Further, the report provides a review of third quarter Internet disruptions in Lebanon, Jordan and Syria based on Akamai traffic patterns observed within those countries.
Highlights from Akamais third quarter, 2012 report:
Global Internet Penetration
More than 680 million IPv4 addresses from 243 countries/regions connected to the Akamai Intelligent Platform during the third quarter of 2012. The figure represents an 11 percent increase year over year. Since a single IP address can represent multiple individuals in some cases - such as when users access the Web through a firewall or proxy server - Akamai estimates the total number of unique Web users connecting to its platform during the quarter to be well over one billion.
For the second quarter in a row, Brazil experienced the greatest year-over-year growth (39 percent) within the group of top 10 countries with the most unique IPv4 addresses connecting to the Akamai Intelligent Platform. In the same top 10 group, China (5.7 percent) showed the largest quarter-over-quarter increase.
Analysis of the full set of countries that connected to the Akamai Intelligent Platform in the third quarter showed that nearly 60 percent saw a quarterly increase and almost 12 percent saw increases of 10 percent or more.
Attack Traffic and Top Ports Attacked
Akamai maintains a distributed set of agents deployed across the Internet that monitors attack traffic. Based on data collected by these agents, Akamai is able to identify the top countries from which attack traffic originates, as well as the top ports targeted by these attacks.
Akamai observed attack traffic from 180 unique countries/regions during the third quarter of 2012, down from 188 in the second quarter. China maintained its position as the single largest volume source of observed traffic at 33 percent. The United States, at number two, experienced a slight increase in originated attack traffic with 13 percent. Russia replaced Turkey in the number three spot by generating 4.7 percent.
During the quarter, the top 10 countries/regions were responsible for generating 72 percent of the observed attack traffic. Within the top 10, slightly more than 50 percent of attack traffic was generated by three countries: China, the United States and Russia.
Receiving 30 percent of observed attack traffic, Port 445 (Microsoft-DS) remained the most targeted port. Port 23 (Telnet) was a distant second at only 7.6 percent.
Operation Ababil
Akamai was involved in protecting some of the organizations targeted by a series of DDoS (Distributed Denial of Service) attacks known as Operation Ababil that occurred in September 2012. As a result, Akamai observed attacks with the following characteristics:
Up to 65 gigabits per second (Gbps) of total attack traffic that varied in target and technique
A significant portion (nearly 23 Gbps) of the attack traffic was aimed at the Domain Name System (DNS) servers that are used for Akamais Enhanced DNS services
Attack traffic to Akamais DNS infrastructure included both UDP and TCP traffic which attempted to overload the servers, and the network in front of them, with spurious requests
The majority of the attack traffic requested legitimate Web pages from Akamai customer sites over HTTP & HTTPS in an attempt to overload the Web servers
Some attack traffic consisted of junk packets that were automatically dropped by Akamai servers
Some attack traffic consisted of HTTP request floods to dynamic portions of sites such as branch/ATM locators and search pages
Global Average and Peak Connection Speeds
The global average connection speed decreased by approximately seven percent between the second and third quarters of 2012 to 2.8 Mbps. South Korea continued to have the highest average connection speed at 14.7 Mbps. Japan (10.7 Mbps) and Hong Kong (8.9 Mbps) rounded out the top three countries for average connection speed in the quarter.
Despite the slight quarter-over-quarter decline, global average connection speed enjoyed healthy 11 percent growth year over year.
Similar to the average connection speed metric, the global average peak connection speed also saw a minor quarter-over-quarter decline, dropping 1.4 percent to 15.9 Mbps. In the third quarter of 2012, Hong Kong boasted the highest peak connection speed at just more than 54 Mbps.
Looking at year-over-year changes, significant improvement was once again seen in the global average peak connection speed, growing
Most recent headlines
06/10/2025
France T l visions, France's leading broadcaster, has received the 2025 EBU ...
04/09/2025
Monumental Sports & Entertainment (MSE), in collaboration with Dalet, has been a...
15/06/2025
July 2025 in Dublin, Berlin, Amsterdam & London
Photo: Thea Martre
Music Production for Women (MPW) have announced that they will be running a series of fo...
15/06/2025
Composer/producer launches free virtual instruments
Sulcata Sound is the latest venture of Jason Graves, a two-time British Academy Award-winnning composer,...
14/06/2025
NEW YORK Pluto TV and the All Womens Sports Network have launched a free ad-supported streaming TV (FAST) AWSN channel in the U.S., Canada, the U.K. and the Nor...
14/06/2025
NEW YORK and CINCINNATI E.W. Scripps has announced a new, multiyear agreement with the WNBA that will continue Ions regular-season coverage of the league on Fri...
14/06/2025
WASHINGTON The National Association of Broadcasters highlighted the hidden importance of spectrum in the production of major sporting events and described wha...
14/06/2025
WASHINGTON Sunsetting ATSC 1.0, expanding business opportunities for NextGen Broadcast and increasing international adoption of the ATSC 3.0 standard were top o...
14/06/2025
SAN FRANCISCO Samba TV and Acxiom have announced that they will dramatically expand their longstanding relationship....
14/06/2025
July 2025 in Dublin, Berlin, Amsterdam & London
Photo: Thea Martre
Music Production for Women (MPW) have announced that they will be running a series of fo...
14/06/2025
San Francisco State University's School of Cinema Uses Blackmagic Design
Brie Clayton June 13, 2025
0 Comments
More than 40 Blackmagic Design came...
14/06/2025
Boris FX Mocha Pro Adds New AI Tools To Tackle VFX Tasks Fast
Jessie Electa Petrov June 13, 2025
0 Comments
The 2025.5 release helps artists work more...
14/06/2025
AJA Debuts DRM2-Plus Mini-Converter Frame at InfoComm 2025
Brie Clayton June 13, 2025
0 Comments
Next-gen frame addresses diverse rackmount needs wit...
13/06/2025
(L-R) Lindsay Utz, Michelle Walshe, and The Right Honourable Dame Jacinda Ardern attend the 2025 Sundance Film Festival premiere of Prime Minister at Eccles T...
13/06/2025
Photo credit: Atsushi Nishijima
If you're a true lover of rom-coms, chances...
13/06/2025
Pure Drama and Fierce Rivalries set to dominate the world's most iconic spor...
13/06/2025
Johannesburg, 12 June 2025 - The National Film and Video Foundation (NFVF), an a...
13/06/2025
ABILENE. Texas A severe storm knocked down the tower and severely damaged the news studio and main facility of Sinclair-owned KTXS here on Sunday, June 8....
13/06/2025
Berklee's Music Business/Management Department Recognized by the Music Biz A...
13/06/2025
WASHINGTON The ATSC, the Broadcast Standards Association, honored veteran technologist Aldo Cugnini and Clarence Hau, Senior Vice President of Standards, Policy...
13/06/2025
(Editor's note: The 2025 UFL Championship Game between the D.C. Defenders and Michigan Panthers kicks off Saturday, June 14, at 8 p.m. Eastern. The game wil...
13/06/2025
New iPad/iPhone synth App announced
Following on from last year's release of Gradient Synth - which reached #6 on the App Store's Paid Music charts ...
13/06/2025
LONDON Warner Bros. Discovery has announced that HBO Max will launch direct-to-consumer in multiple new countries this July as the streamer becomes available in...
13/06/2025
AI voice transcription and captioning platform Verbit has added a new feature to its Captivate ASR solution the ability to identify specific features in automat...
13/06/2025
WASHINGTON Federal Communications Commission member Anna Gomez has wrapped up two weeks in California visiting broadcasters, television studio executives, enter...
13/06/2025
WASHINGTON The U.S. House of Representatives voted mostly along party lines to approve a rescission package that would cancel $9.4 billion in previously approve...
13/06/2025
At InfoComm 2025, AJA Video Systems announced DRM2-Plus, an intuitive, high-capacity 3RU frame that can neatly house up to 24 AJA Mini-Converters. Tailored to s...
13/06/2025
Cinema advertising leader to leverage AOS and suite of AI-enabled solutions to optimize forecasting, yield management, and streamlined ad sales and operations a...
13/06/2025
Manfrotto has launched the ONE Hybrid Tripod, a new support system designed specifically for professional content creators working with mirrorless cameras acros...
13/06/2025
Leading video software provider, Synamedia, today announced that its Media Edge Gateway (MEG), an ATSC 3.0 software-based IRD, now supports Device Security requ...
13/06/2025
LiveU, the global leader in live IP-video contribution, production and distribution solutions, is deepening its commitment to the German-speaking market with th...
13/06/2025
Chaos, the leader in architectural visualisation software, today announces Chaos Corona 13, giving archviz designers new ways to add eye-catching style and flai...
13/06/2025
PALI's Nena Music Video Shot with Blackmagic Design
Brie Clayton June 12, 2025
0 Comments
Blackmagic Cinema Camera 6K and DaVinci Resolve Studio b...
13/06/2025
OddBeast Powers Up iRobot's Newest Roombas with Suite of CGI Launch Assets
Brie Clayton June 12, 2025
0 Comments
The motion design and production ...
13/06/2025
On Chick Coreas Birthday, a Newly Uncovered Archival Release The Visitors, composed by Corea and performed by vibraphonist Gary Burton and pianist Kirill Gers...
13/06/2025
In fulfilment of a recommendation by the Government's Expert Advisory Commit...
13/06/2025
SVG Sit-Down: Backblaze's Gleb Budman Talks Products, Partnerships, and the ...
13/06/2025
SVG Sit-Down: DAZN's Walker Jacobs Calls Streaming the FIFA Club World Cup ...
13/06/2025
New Sponsor Spotlight: Vecima Networks' Paul Strickland on How Improving QoE...
13/06/2025
Pitch Perspective: Where's Next for Specialty Cameras in Soccer? Leaders from Sky Austria and ACS discuss the possibilities of camera placement pitchside B...
13/06/2025
Premiership Rugby Final 2025: Vintage clash between Bath and Leicester gets full...
13/06/2025
Premiership Rugby Final 2025: TNT Sports gears up for Bath vs Leicester battle w...
13/06/2025
NCAA Men's College World Series: ESPN Adds Two-Point SupraCam, Invests in Ne...
13/06/2025
New FSWX signal and spectrum analyzer with novel architecture overcomes limits o...
13/06/2025
Apple today announced the addition of iPad to Self Service Repair, providing iPad owners with access to repair manuals, genuine Apple parts, Apple Diagnostics t...
13/06/2025
CUPERTINO, CALIFORNIA Apple today previewed iOS 26, a major update that brings a beautiful new design, intelligent experiences, and improvements to the apps use...
13/06/2025
At Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC), Apple unveiled Apple Games, an all-new destination designed to help players jump back into the games they...
13/06/2025
Industrial AI isn't slowing down. Germany is ready.
Following London Tech Week and GTC Paris at VivaTech, NVIDIA founder and CEO Jensen Huang's Europea...
12/06/2025
In 2018, Spotify launched Heart & Soul, a mental health initiative developed to ...
12/06/2025
50 Years Strong: SBS and NITV Supercharge NAIDOC Week 2025 in a joint 50th celeb...