The UK ranks 26th in the world for broadband speeds, according to the most recent report from Akamai.

The traffic management firm found that the average UK connection is 3.4Mbit/s, and that 73 per cent have speeds above 2Mbit/s, while 19 per cent have speeds higher than 5Mbit/s.

Broadband speeds in the UK lag far beyond those in South Korea, which took the top spot in the rankings with an average speed of 14.5Mbit/s. South Korea also has the highest concentration of broadband users, at roughly one broadband connection for every four people.

The US has an average broadband speed of 3.9Mbit/s, the Netherlands 5.2Mbit/s and Ireland 5.3Mbit/s.

The UK's average connection speed did, however, clock in ahead of neighbours Spain, France and Italy.

Lausanne in Switzerland laid claim to the fastest broadband in Europe at 24Mbit/s, and has an estimated 75 per cent of users running a connection faster than 5Mbit/s.

In terms of malicious traffic, the study found that Russia and Brazil are the two most popular sources for attacks. The countries accounted for 22 per cent of attack traffic, much of that credited to the ongoing spread and activity of malware botnets.