s & p 500 component founded june 2 1995 ; 21 years ago 1995 06 02 1 headquarters reston virginia u.s. key people james bidzos founder & ceo industry internet communications revenue us 965.087 million 2013 2 us 873.592 million 2012 2 operating income us 528.232 million 2013 2 us 457.327 million 2012 2 net income us 544.45 million 2013 2 us 320.032 million 2012 2 total assets us 2 660.767 million 2013 3 us 2 062.476 million 2012 2 total equity us 423.558 million 2013 3 us 9.323 million 2012 2 employees 1 019 4 slogan s powered by verisign website www.verisign.com alexa rank 20 539 november 2015 update 5 verisign inc. is an american company based in reston virginia united states that operates a diverse array of network infrastructure including two of the internet s thirteen root nameservers the authoritative registry for the . com . net and . name generic top level domains and the . cc and . tv country code top level domains and the back end systems for the . jobs . gov and . edu top level domains . verisign also offers a range of security services including managed dns distributed denial of service ddos attack mitigation 6 and cyber threat reporting . in 2010 verisign sold its authentication business unit which included ssl certificate pki verisign trust seal and verisign identity protection vip services to symantec for 1.28 billion . 7 the deal capped a multi year effort by verisign to narrow its focus to its core infrastructure and security business units . verisign s former cfo brian robins announced in august 2010 that the company would move from its original location of mountain view california to dulles in northern virginia by 2011 due to 95 % of the company s business being on the east coast . 8 contents 1 history 2 authentication sale 3 naming services 4 trust seals 5 company properties 6 controversies 6.1 2001 code signing certificate mistake 6.2 2002 domain transfer law suit 6.3 2003 site finder legal case 6.4 2003 gives up . org domain 6.5 2005 retains . net domain 6.6 2010 data breach and disclosure controversy 6.7 2010 web site domain seizures 7 references 8 external links history edit verisign was founded in 1995 as a spin off of the rsa security certification services business . the new company received licenses to key cryptographic patents held by rsa and a time limited non compete agreement . the new company served as a certificate authority ca and its initial mission was providing trust for the internet and electronic commerce through our digital authentication services and products . prior to selling its certificate business to symantec in 2010 verisign had more than 3 million certificates in operation for everything from military to financial services and retail applications making it the largest ca in the world . in 2000 verisign acquired network solutions 9 which operated the . com . net and . org tlds under agreements with the internet corporation for assigned names and numbers icann and the united states department of commerce . those core registry functions formed the basis for verisign s naming division which is now the company s largest and most significant business unit . 10 in 2002 verisign was charged with violation of the securities exchange act . 11 verisign divested the network solutions retail domain name registrar business in 2003 retaining the domain name registry wholesale function as its core internet addressing business . 12 for the year ended december 31 2010 verisign reported revenue of 681 million up 10 % from 616 million in 2009 . 13 verisign operates two businesses naming services which encompasses the operation of top level domains and critical internet infrastructure and network intelligence and availability nia services which encompasses ddos mitigation managed dns and threat intelligence . verisign s share price tumbled in early 2014 hastened by the u.s. government s announcement that it would relinquish oversight of the internet s domain naming system to a non government entity . 14 authentication sale edit security token produced by verisign on august 9 2010 symantec completed its approximately 1.28 billion acquisition of verisign s authentication business including the secure sockets layer ssl certificate services the public key infrastructure pki services the verisign trust services the verisign identity protection vip authentication service and the majority stake in verisign japan . 15 naming services edit this section does not cite any sources . please help improve this section by adding citations to reliable sources . unsourced material may be challenged and removed . august 2013 learn how and when to remove this template message verisign s core business is its naming services division . the division operates the authoritative domain name registries for two of the internet s most important top level domains . com and . net . it is also the contracted registry operator for the . name and . gov top level domains as well as the country code top level domains . cc cocos islands and . tv tuvalu . in addition verisign is the primary technical subcontractor for the . edu and . jobs top level domains for their respective registry operators which are non profit organizations ; in this role verisign maintains the zone files for these particular domains and host the domains from their domain servers . 16 registry operators are the wholesalers of internet domain names while domain name registrars act as the retailers working directly with consumers to register a domain name address . verisign also operates two of the internet s thirteen root servers which are identified by the letters a m verisign operates the a and j root servers . the root servers form the top of the hierarchical domain name system that supports all internet communication . verisign also generates the globally recognized root zone file and is also responsible for processing changes to that file once they are ordered by icann and approved by the u.s. department of commerce . changes to the root zone were originally distributed via the a root server but now they are distributed to all thirteen servers via a separate distribution system which verisign maintains . verisign is the only one of the 12 root server operators to operate more than one of the thirteen root nameservers . the a and j root servers are anycasted and are no longer operated from any of the company s own datacenters as a means to increase redundancy and availability and mitigate the threat of a single point of failure . verisign s naming services division dates back to 1993 when network solutions was awarded a contract by the national science foundation to manage and operate the civilian side of the internet s domain name registrations . 17 network solutions was the sole registrar for all of the internet s non governmental generic top level domains until 1998 when icann was established and the new system of competitive registrars was implemented . as a result of these new policies network solutions divided itself into two divisions . the nsi registry division was established to manage the authoritative registries that the company would still operate and was separated from the customer facing registrar business that would have to compete with other registrars . the divisions were even geographically split with the nsi registry moving from the corporate headquarters in herndon virginia to nearby dulles virginia . in 2000 verisign purchased network solutions taking over its role in the internet dns . the nsi registry division eventually became verisign s naming services division while the remainder of network solutions was later sold by verisign in 2003 to pivotal equity group . trust seals edit verisign is also offering trust seal products for e commerce sites competing in this space with truste bbb online and webtrust . 18 company properties edit this section does not cite any sources . please help improve this section by adding citations to reliable sources . unsourced material may be challenged and removed . august 2013 learn how and when to remove this template message following the sale of its authentication services division in 2010 verisign relocated from its former headquarters in mountain view california to the headquarters of the naming division in sterling virginia originally nsi registry s headquarters . verisign began shopping that year for a new permanent home shortly after moving . they signed a lease for 12061 bluemont way in reston the former sallie mae headquarters in 2010 and decided to purchase the building in september 2011 . they have since terminated their lease of their current space in two buildings at lakeside loudoun technology center . the company completed its move at the end of november 2011 . the new headquarters is located in the reston town center development which has become a major commercial and business hub for the region . in addition to its reston headquarters verisign owns three data center properties . one at 22340 dresden street in dulles virginia not far from its corporate headquarters within the large broad run technology park one at 21 boulden circle in new castle delaware and a third in fribourg switzerland . their three data centers are mirrored so that a disaster at one data center has a minimal impact on operations . verisign also leases an office suite in downtown washington d.c. on k street where its government relations office is located . it also has leased server space in numerous internet data centers around the world where the dns constellation resolution sites are located mostly at major internet peering facilities . one such facility is at the equinix ashburn datacenter in ashburn virginia one of the world s largest datacenters and internet transit hubs . controversies edit 2001 code signing certificate mistake edit in january 2001 verisign mistakenly issued two class 3 code signing certificates to an individual claiming to be an employee of microsoft . 19 the mistake was not discovered and the certificates were not revoked until two weeks later during a routine audit . because verisign code signing certificates do not specify a certificate revocation list distribution point there was no way for them to be automatically detected as having been revoked placing microsoft s customers at risk . citation needed microsoft had to later release a special security patch in order to revoke the certificates and mark them as being fraudulent . 20 2002 domain transfer law suit edit in 2002 verisign was sued for domain slamming transferring domains from other registrars to themselves by making the registrants believe they were merely renewing their domain name . although they were found not to have broken the law they were barred from suggesting that a domain was about to expire or claim that a transfer was actually a renewal . 21 2003 site finder legal case edit in september 2003 verisign introduced a service called site finder which redirected web browsers to a search service when users attempted to go to non existent . com or . net domain names . icann asserted that verisign had overstepped the terms of its contract with the u.s. department of commerce which in essence grants verisign the right to operate the dns for . com and . net and verisign shut down the service . subsequently verisign filed a lawsuit against icann in february 2004 seeking to gain clarity over what services it could offer in the context of its contract with icann . the claim was moved from federal to california state court in august 2004 . 22 in late 2005 verisign and icann announced a proposed settlement which defined a process for the introduction of new registry services in the . com registry . the documents concerning these settlements are available at icann.org . 23 the icann comments mailing list archive 24 documents some of the criticisms that have been raised regarding the settlement . additionally verisign was involved in the