Ken Silva

Ken Silva: As Chief Technology Officer, Ken Silva oversees VeriSign's mission critical Internet infrastructure that enables and protects billions of interactions every day across the world's voice and data networks.

In this role, he oversees the network and information security for VeriSign's portfolio of digital infrastructure solutions that enable the world to securely communicate, conduct commerce and access the latest content. Mr. Silva's responsibilities include oversight of the technical and network security for a definitive database of millions of Web addresses in .com and .net - the world's most recognizable top-level domains. Responding to more than 30 billion DNS queries daily, the platform provide authoritative routing support for every Web address ending with .com or .net. Mr. Silva also oversees the management of two of the world's 13 Internet root servers, a.root-servers.net and j.root-servers.net, considered national IT assets by the U.S. Federal Government. Additionally, Mr. Silva coordinates the security oversight of the system that protects more than 750,000 Web servers with digital certificates, protecting the majority of secure Web sites on the Internet, including 93 percent of the Fortune 500 sites.

Mr. Silva serves on the board of directors for the Information Technology, Information Sharing and Analysis Center (IT-ISAC) and is the Chairman of the board of the Internet Security Alliance. He also advises and participates in a number of national and international committees for organizations, including the National Infrastructure Protection Center (NIPC), White House ISP Security Panel, the ICANN DNS Security Panel, the Network Reliability and Interoperability Council (NRIC), and the National Security Telecommunications Advisory Committee (NSTAC).

Mr. Silva previously served as VeriSign's first Chief Security Officer and vice president of technology strategy. He joined VeriSign with more than 20 years experience in the telecommunications and security industries. He came from the National Security Agency where he served 10 years most recently as executive technical director. Mr. Silva has served in various other leadership positions, taught courses at the national cryptologic school, and served 10 years in the United States Air Force.

Appearing at:

DNS Systemic Vulnerabilities and Risk Management: A Discussion