China and the United States accounted for the greatest percentage of Internet attacks in the first quarter of this year, according to a report released this week.

Akamai's first "State of the Internet" report covers information about broadband, attacks and other data gathered in Q1 of 2008. The report also offers news and information about Denial of Services attacks, hacking, and network events.

It showed attacks coming from 125 countries, targeting 23 unique network ports, but the United States and China accounted for 30% of the attack traffic. Ports with the most attack traffic were targeted by worms, viruses, and bots that spread across the Internet several years ago, Akamai said.

South Korea ranked highest in terms of broadband speeds with almost 64% of its connections at more than 5 Mbps. Rwanda and the Solomon Islands ranked as the slowest countries, with 95% or more of the connections to Akamai below 256 Kbps.

The United States ranked seventh. Within the country, Delaware ranked as the fastest state, with more than 60% of its connections at 5 Mbps or faster. Washington State and Virginia had the highest percentages (21% and 18%) of connections slower than 256 Kbps connections.

Major network events include the severing of cables in the Mediterranean Sea, which cut connections between Europe and the Middle East; Cogent's de-peering of Telia, which slowed communications between users in the United States and Europe for two weeks; and Pakistan Telecom's routing change which knocked out YouTube access for several hours.

The full Akamai State of the Internet report is available online at the company's Web site and requires registration.