About Validin

Learn More about the Team

We’re making superior domain and IP intelligence accessible for individuals and organizations to protect and defend their networks and customers.
Learn More about the Team

Our vision

Our Vision

We are building the platform that provides the single most essential view of the global public internet for cyber threat intelligence. We never stop developing and improving Validin to help security teams stop cybercriminals and hunt APTs.

Our story

Why we built Validin

Founded in 2021, Validin was born from a deep understanding of the critical role that comprehensive DNS data plays in cybersecurity, forensic investigations, incident response, and threat hunting.

At Validin, we seek to set a new standard for passive DNS collection and forensic capability. We created a solution that proactively generates DNS queries and records the answers - an approach known as “forward DNS” - for every domain in our massive and constantly growing database.

Our vision stemmed from recognizing the limitations of purely passive DNS and the need for a completely independent data source that could close the significant gaps left by legacy historic DNS solutions. By not relying on user or machine-generated activity, we bring a more complete and independent perspective to forensic DNS.

To realize our vision, we built numerous domain discovery tools that combine to create a unique, world-class domain discovery engine. We scour hundreds of sources for domain names, crawl close to 1 billion HTTP and HTTPS endpoints daily, and make predictive guesses about domains we think exist or might exist soon.

We capture answers for every DNS name in our database, at least daily, regardless of popularity or notoriety. This approach enables us to track infrastructure before it’s widely known. Our commitment to timely, comprehensive coverage aims to give those tasked with monitoring, detecting, and preventing threats unparalleled granularity of global DNS state and history.

This unique view, combined with a platform designed from scratch for threat researchers, seeks to empower security teams and individuals with low-effort access to potent knowledge.

Our history

How we got here.

Collection started two years before the company did, and has not stopped since.

  1. 2019

    DNS Collection Begins

    Kenneth Kinion, prior to founding Validin, begins work on proactive domain name discovery and resolution, creating an independent and unique data source for detailed DNS history.

  2. 2020

    Heavy Investment in Proactive Discovery

    Kenneth builds a robust pipeline for proactively and insightfully public reporting data across billions of domain names.

  3. 2021

    Validin Founded

    Validin is officially founded and serves its first customers.

  4. 2022

    Product Maturation

    Validin invests in the massive scalability required to process, index, and interface with years of historic data with unparalleled detail.

  5. 2023

    Community Launched

    Validin adds registration and host response data collection and launches the Validin Community platform in Fall 2023 with DNS pivoting and filtering capabilities.

  6. 2024

    Validin 2.0 Launched

    Validin launches a unified platform with DNS, host response, certificate, OSINT, and registration annotations and pivoting capabilities.

  7. Late 2024

    Widespread Adoption and Port Crawling

    Validin crosses 3000 individual users and customers from hundreds of organizations worldwide. Validin also adds dozens of ports to its regular internet scanning, giving users unparalleled visibility into the internet.

  8. 2025

    Rapid Growth

    Validin starts collecting full HTML responses, enabling deep, precision searches using YARA rules; adds Threat Actor Profiles to track thousands of publicly-reported named threats and develops an advanced search syntax for fine-tuned query capabilities.

The team

Leadership

The people leading Validin's internet-intelligence platform.

John Head

CEO

John Head

John brings over 30 years of experience driving process and digital transformation for enterprise organizations through technology innovation. Having worked across nearly every function inside client organizations, he brings a rare, ground-level perspective to how Validin addresses the security and threat intelligence needs of its customers. He’s driven by a single goal: making sure every client and user of the Validin platform is better equipped to defend against global threats.

Outside of work, John prioritizes time with his wife and their two kids, stays active serving his church community, and keeps a competitive edge on the tennis court and golf course. Looking ahead, he’s setting his sights on owning a catamaran in the BVIs — ready to welcome family and friends aboard for unforgettable time on the water.

Kenneth Kinion

Founder and CTO

Kenneth Kinion

Kenneth brings deep experience in software and data engineering to Validin. He started working in security data analytics with large datasets in 2008 when he graduated from Georgia Tech. He joined Microsoft to help find malicious activity through bulk data analysis. He’s worked on very high-scale data and services at Amazon in Seattle and moved back to Atlanta to work for and with numerous Atlanta-based security startups.

Before graduating college, Kenneth worked as an embedded software engineer, writing C and assembly language programs for very low-resource microcontroller applications. He’s spent time in test, development, and research roles.

Sreekar Madabushi

Founding Engineer

Sreekar Madabushi

Sreekar brings a wealth of engineering and academic experience to Validin’s engineering team. With a variety of academic interests, Sreekar is especially passionate about discovering cyber threats and working with big data sets. In his time at Validin, Sreekar has been instrumental in accelerating major product launches while driving development of Validin’s next-generation internet intelligence platform. He has also presented at multiple research conferences, exploring the latest cyber threats in the landscape.

Prior to Validin, Sreekar was a two-time contestant on Jeopardy! and previously interned with Amazon and the U.S. Navy. Sreekar holds an undergraduate degree in Computer Science from Georgia Tech.

Advisors

Tom Hegel

Advisor

Tom Hegel

An accomplished cybersecurity researcher and a leader in the threat intelligence space, with a background of tracking some of the most interesting and unique threat actors globally. Tom’s dedication lies in driving cutting-edge cyber threat intelligence and research, collaborating with top-tier analysts and organizations worldwide.

As a Principal Threat Researcher and Research Lead at SentinelLabs, Tom spearheads investigations into the most sophisticated nation-state and criminal threat actors, uncovering operations from adversaries across Russia, China, Iran, North Korea, India, and beyond. His work has led to the discovery of new mercenary groups, emerging geopolitical cyber campaigns, and critical insights into global conflicts.

Get in touch

Contact us

Validin is the first tab I open every morning.
Senior Analyst, Financial Services IT Company