GigaOM » David Ulevitch

As OpenDNS focuses on security, investors offer a Series B

Stacey Higginbotham — Tue, 26 Mar 2013 14:33:46 +0000

OpenDNS, the domain-name-server-provider-turned-security-company, has raised an undisclosed second round of capital as a Series B, and added Stefan Dyckerhoff from Sutter Hill Ventures to its board. The company, which last year expanded from DNS services to providing security optimized for today’s cloud environment, has seen its user base grow significantly from 3,500 to 7,000 enterprise customers. The funding will help it add staff and data centers to support the Umbrella security offering.

Domain name servers are an integral part of the internet, containing the IP address of domain names you type into a browser. When a user types in a URL, the computer sends the request to a DNS server that then tells your computer the site’s IP address. Control of DNS servers allows OpenDNS to provide a level of security no matter where the person logging into a network sits, because a company can enforce its policies at the domain name server, essentially refusing employees access to questionable or malicious sites before the content ever gets to the device. It also stops attacks way out in the internet as opposed to on the corporate network.

For those who want to know more about security threats facing corporations here’s a video interview with OpenDNS CEO David Ulevitch discussing how the adoption of the cloud and geopolitical instability has led to a new level of security threats:

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OpenDNS CEO: Security isn’t that hard

Chris Albrecht — Tue, 07 Aug 2012 03:24:03 +0000

Wired writer, Mat Honan, was the victim of an “epic hacking” over the weekend. Our hearts go out to him and I’ll knock on any available chunk of wood to never experience the same thing. Given that Honan’s hack started with some social engineering on a customer service rep, we thought it was a good idea to show this additional footage from a recent interview with did with OpenDNS‘ CEO, David Ulevitch. In it, Ulevitch warns of social engineering and advises startups to bake security into their products from the ground up. This is especially important as more people bring their own devices to work and use cloud services.

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Deal with poor performers now [video]

Chris Albrecht — Fri, 03 Aug 2012 22:30:10 +0000

OpenDNS is on the verge of crossing over 100 employees. It’s growing is so fast that by the end of 2012, half of the company will have been there for less than a year. But as founder and CEO David Ulevitch discovered, not every employee is suited for the next stage of the company. Through internal satisfaction surveys and his own intuition, he realized OpenDNS was not dealing well with poor performers. Ulevitch points out that poor performance could be a result of a corporate pivot, or managers holding lower standards for their direct reports.

Regardless of why some people are poor performers, on this episode of See Founders Run, Ulevitch talks about the importance of not wasting time on those those who waste time.

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