DDoS Protection & Tech Scaling: Link11's Jens Philipp Jung on Cybersecurity's Future (Part 1)

Jens Philipp Jung, CEO of Link11, discussing DDoS protection strategies at a tech conference.

Management Summary:

In this insightful interview, Startuprad.io's Joe Menninger speaks with Jens Philipp Jung, CEO of Link11, a leader in DDoS protection, about the dynamic world of cybersecurity and the challenges of scaling a tech business. Jung shares his journey into cybersecurity, the evolution of DDoS threats, and key strategies for startup growth, offering valuable lessons for entrepreneurs, tech founders, executives, and investors navigating today's complex digital landscape. From the importance of focus to the impact of AI on cyberattacks, this discussion provides actionable insights for securing and scaling your tech ventures.

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The Evolution of a Cybersecurity Leader

Jens Philipp Jung's entry into the world of cybersecurity wasn't exactly planned. Initially, Link11 was established as a managed service provider for low latency network and server applications. "It was partially because of my passion and history in the gaming and building these LAN parties," Jung recalls. However, the company's trajectory shifted dramatically when they faced crippling DDoS attacks.

What is a DDoS Attack?

A DDoS (Distributed Denial of Service) attack overwhelms a server's internet connectivity, rendering applications unreachable. Even with robust data center infrastructure, these attacks can disrupt services, causing significant financial losses, especially during peak business periods. As Jung explains, "Imagine you have some high business peak days, for example, Black Friday...and then on such events, suddenly, the whole online shop does not work any longer. Nobody can access it".

This challenge led Jung's co-founder, Karsten Dessler, to develop an in-house DDoS mitigation technology. This solution proved so effective that other companies sought their expertise, propelling Link11 into the cybersecurity arena.

Key Takeaway:

Link11's pivot into cybersecurity highlights how unexpected challenges can lead to significant business opportunities, especially in the tech sector.

Scaling a Tech Company: The Hiring Hurdle

"Hiring, hiring, hiring," Jung emphasizes, identifying it as one of the most significant challenges in scaling a tech company. While attracting a large number of applicants may not be the issue (Link11, for example, received over 2,000 applications for seven positions ), securing top talent in a competitive market, especially against US competitors with higher salaries, is a major hurdle.

What Qualities Define a Strong Hire?

Jung prioritizes attitude and mindset over pure skill. "If you have a very well skilled applicant but he's lazy, then this is not a good hire," he asserts. A strong work ethic, a desire to achieve, and a cultural fit are crucial for building a successful team.

Related Startuprad.io Content:

DORA Act Website Compliance: A Comprehensive Guide for Tech Founders https://www.startuprad.io/post/dora-act-website-compliance-a-comprehensive-guide-for-tech-founders
DORA Compliance: A Comprehensive Guide to Digital Operational Resilience https://www.startuprad.io/post/dora-compliance-a-comprehensive-guide-to-digital-operational-resilience

The Power of Partnerships

Partnerships have played a vital role in Link11's growth. Initially focused on "go-to-market" partnerships with data center providers and managed service providers to extend their reach, Link11 is now strategically pursuing OEM and tech partnerships. Jung believes that "joining forces and achieving something together, does not only make more fun, but also generates greater outcome".

Navigating Cybersecurity Trends

The cybersecurity landscape is in constant flux, demanding continuous adaptation. Jung highlights three key trends:

The Age of AI: AI is a double-edged sword, increasing both the efficiency of companies and the sophistication of cyberattacks. AI-driven attacks are more complex, harder to detect, and more frequent, posing a significant challenge to cybersecurity professionals.
Shift Left Approach: This approach integrates cybersecurity earlier in the application development lifecycle, aiming to build security into applications from the start rather than patching vulnerabilities later.
Zero Trust: Zero trust security architectures operate on the principle of "never trust, always verify," even within the network perimeter. This model assumes that no user, device, or application should be trusted by default, mitigating the impact of potential breaches.

Protecting Critical Infrastructure (DDoS Protection)

Link11 safeguards critical infrastructure, including major airports like Fraport and air navigation service providers such as Deutsche Flugsicherung. In these scenarios, rapid response is paramount to minimize damage. Jung likens their role to "firefighters," quickly assessing the situation and implementing playbooks to restore services.

Related Startuprad.io Content:

Asvin Provides Cybersecurity for the Internet of Things http://startuprad.io/post/asvin-provides-cybersecurity-for-the-internet-of-things

Conclusion

Jens Philipp Jung's insights offer a valuable roadmap for navigating the complexities of cybersecurity and scaling a tech company. From understanding the evolving threat landscape to prioritizing the right talent and building strategic partnerships, his experience provides actionable advice for entrepreneurs, founders, and executives in the DACH region and beyond.

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Automated Transcript

Narrator Dorsey Jackson [00:00:05]:

Welcome to startuprad.io. Your podcast and YouTube blog covering the German startup scene with news, interviews, and live events.

Jörn 'Joe' Menninger | Founder and Editor in Chief | Startuprad.io [00:00:20]:

Hello and welcome everybody. This is Joe from startuprate.ao, your startup podcast and YouTube blog from Germany, your go to podcast for startup tech and innovations inside. Today, we have a special guest, Jens Philipp Jung, CEO of Link eleven, a leader in DDoS protection and one of the top 40 under 40 by Capitale. If you ever wondered how to scale a tech business or navigate the challenges of cybersecurity in today's rapidly evolving market, this episode is for you. Let's dive into Philips entrepreneurial journey, leadership lessons and innovations in the cybersecurity space. Jens, welcome.

Jens-Philipp Jung | CEO and Co-Founder Link11 [00:00:59]:

Hi, Jens. Very nice to be here. Welcome, everybody.

Jörn 'Joe' Menninger | Founder and Editor in Chief | Startuprad.io [00:01:03]:

Totally my pleasure. Let let me, spend a few words on our enabler today. This recording was made possible by HDAI and the Enterprise Europe Network, Hessen. These organizations have made tremendous contribution to helping start up businesses succeed and thrive, providing a range of services from helping to find grants to ongoing partnerships. By making by taking advantage of these resources, start up companies can network and develop innovative strategies for success on the international stage. The dedicated support of HDNI and the enterprise Europe network Hessen is paramount in providing start up businesses with the tools for lasting success. Learn more on htii.de and enminusHessen.de. So now that we got that out of the way, Jens, thank you for joining us today.

Jörn 'Joe' Menninger | Founder and Editor in Chief | Startuprad.io [00:01:54]:

Let's start with your journey. What sparked your interest in technology and cybersecurity in the first place? Have you been a a juvenile hacker?

Jens-Philipp Jung | CEO and Co-Founder Link11 [00:02:05]:

I wish. But, unfortunately, I mainly used, when I was young, the computer for entertaining myself. So I was a passionate gamer. I mean, I was born '83 and then, get in touch with the first first computers. And, yeah, instead of, doing something really useful with it, I spent my time in gaming with it. I would say the the the largest useful use of it was probably organizing LAN parties back in these days. So this was also was already very much familiar with networks and, like, connecting computers and and building these events and these infrastructure for the LAN parties back in these days, right, long before you were able to play, with a good latency online.

Jörn 'Joe' Menninger | Founder and Editor in Chief | Startuprad.io [00:02:53]:

Yes. I remember those parties, where where you really had to physically bring your computer. I even remember the time when you have those red coaxial cables and need to screw them in and stuff like this. Yeah. Good times. And, I I do know a lot of our audience is about the same age rate. What games did you play?

Jens-Philipp Jung | CEO and Co-Founder Link11 [00:03:15]:

Oh, it was primarily Counter Strike. I I heard it's still a a thing today. Luckily, I left the whole gaming behind me. But back in these days, it was, like, primary Counter Strike from from early in the morning to late in the evening, except on school days.

Jörn 'Joe' Menninger | Founder and Editor in Chief | Startuprad.io [00:03:32]:

I see. I see. Well, for me, I was once at a LAN party with a blank counter strike. But after I died more than 40 times in thirty minutes, I thought, maybe not my game. You have built Link eleven into a leader of Indeedos protection. How did the initial idea come about, and what was your vision when you first started the company?

Jens-Philipp Jung | CEO and Co-Founder Link11 [00:04:00]:

Yeah. This was actually a big coincidence, because when we have founded the company initially, we founded the company as a managed service provider for low latency applications, network applications, and server applications, which was, I would say, partially because of, my passion and history in the gaming and building these LAN parties. But this was how it came that we have set up and managed server infrastructures and network infrastructures in the data centers in Frankfurt. And while operating this business, we suddenly were faced with the so called DDoS attacks, which have overwhelmed our network and put the whole infrastructure offline. And this was a serious issue, and we needed to solve this issue. And my cofounder, Karsten Dessler, who is a world class engineer, while I'm just a commercial guy to say so with some technical passion, he has looked around what solutions we could implement to mitigate these tedious attacks, which had serious effects on the availability of our services, which we have provided back in these days. And he basically can come with an idea to develop an tedious mitigation technology by himself, leveraging his, programming skills and our existing infrastructure. And this solution was such good and such capable that, from word-of-mouth, other companies came to us and asked us if we could also provide this kind of DDoS mitigation technology to them.

Jens-Philipp Jung | CEO and Co-Founder Link11 [00:05:37]:

And as initially, we only has developed it for ourself, we find commercial agreements with them and also then develop an user interface for our technology that also other companies can use our service. And this was how we came into cybersecurity. So we were affected by a cyber attack where we didn't find any applicable solution and then have developed our own solution to help ourselves and now million of other assets.

Jörn 'Joe' Menninger | Founder and Editor in Chief | Startuprad.io [00:06:09]:

I see. Most people will already know what a DDoS attack is. Can you give us a short definition? And before that, we may ask, add to our audience because not everybody is aware of that. We are heard, globally around the world in more than 90 countries. Frankfurt is one of the, most important centers of the Internet. We have the largest Internet not here in Frankfurt with the ECIX, and, that's one of the reasons why we do have such a lot of, cloud computing all around here, which basically laid laid the foundation for your business. And now back to you with the DDoS.

Jens-Philipp Jung | CEO and Co-Founder Link11 [00:06:49]:

Absolutely. So here in Frankfurt, all the data centers where the servers are running, and on the servers are obviously the applications. And the tricky thing with a dealers attack is that even if you have, like, a world class data center with redundancy power cooling and all of these multimillion dollar investments, you have a lot of servers in the data center, and you're highly sophisticated applications. If a deal is attack hits you, it basically saturates the Internet connectivity of these servers. So and if you if your application is depending to be reachable out of the Internet or even if it's reachable out of virtual private networks or similar things, then such tedious attack will interrupt the service and, it looks like your application is totally unavailable and offline. And especially nowadays where everything runs twenty four seven, this is a serious issue because imagine you have some high business peak days, for example, Black Friday, for example, Valentine's Day in the ecommerce space. And then on such events, suddenly, the whole online shop does not work any longer. Nobody can access it.

Jens-Philipp Jung | CEO and Co-Founder Link11 [00:07:55]:

Nobody can place any order. And you make, like, zero revenue on this day.

Jörn 'Joe' Menninger | Founder and Editor in Chief | Startuprad.io [00:08:01]:

What were some of the most unexpected challenges you encountered early in building your business, and how did you overcome them?

Jens-Philipp Jung | CEO and Co-Founder Link11 [00:08:10]:

Well, I would say, you know, I was I I was lucky and grew up in a nice in a nice area with with nice friends and nice family and also some kind of mobile mobile picture. And first, when I was very surprised about what happened was when we have actually received these tedious attacks, because, I mean, this was somebody actively sending, cyber attack to us to damage our business, which was already quite a surprise for me back in these days because I never thought about that that that that things could happen. I mean, we operated the business in a good manner and everything like that. And then somebody and we don't even know who because this is the tricky thing with cyberattacks. You usually don't know who was the initiator of the cyberattacks. Some somebody has sent this attack to us, put us offline. So this was a big surprise for me and some kind of challenge on the same time. Very often out of challenges, you have opportunities, and I think we use this quite well.

Jens-Philipp Jung | CEO and Co-Founder Link11 [00:09:15]:

Another challenge in in a similar area, but, unfortunately, this does not bring really, like, a opportunity, was when we found out that we were cheated by some former employees. So this was really something very challenging for me also from an from a personal level because I always thought about, okay, what have we done wrong? Why why were we cheated, by this employee? And, this was this was really, like, a challenging time to understand this and and to navigate through this because it totally is the opposite of what I understand from, from a mobile compass.

Jörn 'Joe' Menninger | Founder and Editor in Chief | Startuprad.io [00:09:53]:

And I'm wondering if now your, whole office is completely covered with cameras except the bathrooms, but that's a really different topic.

Jens-Philipp Jung | CEO and Co-Founder Link11 [00:10:03]:

No. Actually, not right. And, I mean, this is the tricky thing. Just because such thing happens to you once, you you should not lose trust and, and and and the the good sign and the people. Right? So, actually, we don't have installed any camera because of that. And and we also hope that it does not happen to us a second time. And, yeah, we we trust our employees there. And, obviously, since this was, like, very early experience fifteen years ago and we've never had a second experience since then, I think we we were able to make better decision when it comes to hiring and managing the people that such a thing would not happen again.

Jörn 'Joe' Menninger | Founder and Editor in Chief | Startuprad.io [00:10:48]:

Mhmm. I would be interested for our audience if they can think of an unexpected challenge they have faced in their start up journey. Happy to hear your thoughts. Share them with us. Looking back now, what would you say was the biggest turning point for link eleven? What moment made you feel like you're on the right path? Because, my understanding is you have this DDoS tool and, you just used it. And then somebody popped over into your office and said, hey, guys. Your business is pretty good, but you do you did develop tool there. Can I have it?

Jens-Philipp Jung | CEO and Co-Founder Link11 [00:11:26]:

Yeah. Actually, this was also, like, a real turning point when we have one the the first clients. But as they were still pretty small, I would say the biggest turning point was actually not too far away from winning the first client because there were then, like, nice demand from Fortune five hundred organizations. And, this was really like a turning point when we were able to win our first Fortune 500 client because it really shows, okay, this is what what we have developed here, it's like a serious it's a serious solution for a serious problem, and even the largest organization in this world are facing with the threat and are challenged, or have challenges for solving these issues and these problems. So this was really like a turning point, which gave us also the confidence to have some kind of product market fit, which was an unfamiliar term for us back in these days, obviously. We're speaking about 02/2010.

Jörn 'Joe' Menninger | Founder and Editor in Chief | Startuprad.io [00:12:36]:

You've recently been recognized as one of the top four Pfitzig under Pfitzig by Capital, like the German equivalent of Forbes. How did that kind of recognition impact you personally and professionally?

Jens-Philipp Jung | CEO and Co-Founder Link11 [00:12:50]:

It has two impacts. So first impact is we are, as Link eleven, some kind of hidden champion, especially cybersecurity. I mean, we serve large b to b clients. We have a strong b to b focus serving a very specific, target audience, network administrator, head of network, CISOs, and so on. So generally speaking, if you if you ask in a broader audience, who is Sling11 or what does Sling11 know, does, I would say the brand is not really familiar to many. And also then if we are going into hiring, we sometimes already have or very much need to explain what we actually do, how is our company culture, and so on. But this forty and forty, a lot helps us also to stand out a little bit and show about the capabilities of the organization and, and what we have achieved so far. So this really helps us in terms of hiring and standing out a little bit, from this hidden champion position and get some better visibility to other entrepreneurs, investors, and also, potential employees.

Jens-Philipp Jung | CEO and Co-Founder Link11 [00:14:03]:

And the second thing is when I was on my business trips in The USA and, in Israel just lately because of the acquisition which we have done there, I always were very, very impressed how well all of these entrepreneurs are connected. And when I came back to Germany, I recognized that here, it's quite the opposite. I mean, yes, in in Berlin, whereas where we have, like, a nice start up scene, there is a lot of events, a lot of connection. But if you are outside of Berlin, it's very difficult, and there is not that many not that many events, not that many connections. And, therefore, also, this 40 under 40, award helped me because, actually, beside of the award, there's also I I mean, beside of receiving the award for yourself, you also have many other peoples there, brilliant minds, smart entrepreneurs, great managers who received the similar award, and they really emphasize these community of 40 on the 40 members. We have our WhatsApp groups, our Slack channels. There are many events organized. You have, peer group meetings.

Jens-Philipp Jung | CEO and Co-Founder Link11 [00:15:14]:

You have, sharing you are sharing best practices, and and and you make new friends and connections. So this was really, really nice from a terms of building a network and getting in touch with peer group and like minded people.

Jörn 'Joe' Menninger | Founder and Editor in Chief | Startuprad.io [00:15:29]:

Mhmm. And going a little bit more into you, every entrepreneur has a set of habits and routines that help them to stay productive. What's one habit you swear by that had helped you in your journey?

Jens-Philipp Jung | CEO and Co-Founder Link11 [00:15:45]:

I think one of the most important things is to keep focus because there are so many interesting opportunities out there, so many great new ideas, new technology, new business models, and so on. And one of the main thing is always keep on focus on what you are doing. Because if you if you change too often, if you lose the focus, you will end up nowhere. So I think one of one of the key v two routine I have for that, I mean, I created some kind of dashboard or or a whiteboard where I have, like, the topics where I wanna focus on. We just recently implemented OKR to really think in, like, a quarter will a a quarter with them to really keep focus on the things which actually matter. And and and don't lose this focus because of any other ideas, opportunities, out there. And last but not least, if you if if you get into a certain age, I would say so, the best the best routine, you could have is, to have a supportive wife and family. So also on this with with having having said that, nice greetings to my wife, Jessica, the love of my life.

Jörn 'Joe' Menninger | Founder and Editor in Chief | Startuprad.io [00:17:12]:

Oh, so sweet. That also brings me to the next question. How do you balance the demands of a growing business while maintaining a healthy work life balance?

Jens-Philipp Jung | CEO and Co-Founder Link11 [00:17:24]:

Yeah. That's a tricky one. What I read and and and learned and heard and also experienced is that what many successful founders have in common if is that they are working as hell. So building a start up is not a part time job, and it's also not a full time job. It's like a eighty to hundred hours a week job, in my opinion. Right? And what what I heard from others, I mean, if you ask if you ask, work life balance coaches, they will tell you the the opposite. Right? But so my experience is if if you want to build a start up and if you really want to be successful, we speak about eighty to hundred hours, which basically means, like, you wake up, you have a quick breakfast, and then you work on your start up until you go into bed sleeping. And then, every day, the same repeat is, work like hell.

Jens-Philipp Jung | CEO and Co-Founder Link11 [00:18:29]:

Right? When when there is crunch time, then really lean in. And, yes, then there are also things like, sport, healthy food, meeting with friends, building relationships, and things like that. You know, the day only has twenty four hours, and I always thought about, hey. If others work eight hours and I would work sixteen hours a day, I could basically achieve twice the outcome. So this was I mean, this is why I say, like, basically, okay. Building a start up requires just a lot of time. And and if you speak with with, other successful founders and ask about, okay, what actually in in the beginning, especially, how many how many hours have you worked today? I think many many would answer that it was way above forty hours. So work work life balance comes, for me at least, right, after I have brought the company to a certain stage.

Jens-Philipp Jung | CEO and Co-Founder Link11 [00:19:35]:

Currently, it's, like, % the company and nothing else.

Jörn 'Joe' Menninger | Founder and Editor in Chief | Startuprad.io [00:19:42]:

Mhmm. I see. Okay. Link is Link eleven is known for its cutting edge technology and innovation. How do you stay ahead of the curve in such a fast paced and competitive industry?

Jens-Philipp Jung | CEO and Co-Founder Link11 [00:19:55]:

Yeah. Indeed. Also, not only that the technology shifts, very fast. Also, it's a kind of cat and mouse game because you have the the hackers who develop new threats, and you always need to keep pace with that. So the kind of good source for keeping pace with that is your customer base. So our customers, as already said, we are we are selling to very technical people, and they are all very great minds and a great source for ideas and inspiration. You just need to listen very carefully to them. You need to find the time to speak with them.

Jens-Philipp Jung | CEO and Co-Founder Link11 [00:20:42]:

You need to find the common challenges between the different individual statements of this customer base of of these feedbacks. But speaking to your clients is very, very often the best source of inspiration and create business ideas.

Jörn 'Joe' Menninger | Founder and Editor in Chief | Startuprad.io [00:21:02]:

Yes. Customer centric. I see. For our audience, I would be curious what innovative tools or strategies have to help you to stay ahead of your in your business. Share them with us. Jens, can you walk us through a specific instance when you had to pivot or adjust LinkEleven's approach in response to market challenges or new cybersecurity threats?

Jens-Philipp Jung | CEO and Co-Founder Link11 [00:21:28]:

I would say DDoS is some kind of evergreen topic, which is good and bad on the same time because if if there are new cyber threats, in our sector, we could adopt to them and we could we could develop new solutions. But DDoS is, like, already existing since twenty, thirty years and probably will exist also for the next twenty to thirty years. So we have the situation that there was not, like, a real pivot need in terms of these, data solution what we have, right, which is type of our core business. But while the threat of these attacks was there and, is still there and also increases, now our customers also facing other threats and other cyberattacks. And therefore, the customers are demanding more like a platform solution instead of an single, capability solution. And this is a kind of special situation because, you know, in the past, it was good enough to have the best mitigation service because customers tend to buy best in breed. But now customers want to have vendor consolidation. They want to have a single vendor providing more solutions.

Jens-Philipp Jung | CEO and Co-Founder Link11 [00:22:49]:

And, therefore, it's super important to have multiple products, which was then kind of a pivot for us to get out of the data space and offer a more broader, service range. And, luckily, we have already anticipated this trend and made some strategic acquisitions. So part of the product portfolio we are now offering was developed by ourselves. Part of the product portfolio on what we are offering was through strategic acquisitions, which was some kind of pivotal moment for us and some kind of, yeah, change in terms of strategy. And if you are still nowadays, I would say some kind of one trick pony, that would be very challenging in nowadays buying behavior who really tends to have more like a platform solution instead of, island solution.

Jörn 'Joe' Menninger | Founder and Editor in Chief | Startuprad.io [00:23:44]:

Going a little bit into a, more scaling mindset, what do you think is the most difficult task, the most difficult aspect in scaling in scaling a tech company? And how would you advise other founders to approach it?

Jens-Philipp Jung | CEO and Co-Founder Link11 [00:24:01]:

Three three very or or three very, difficult points. Hiring, hiring, hiring. So, I would say because I mean, now we have this huge AI boom and maybe, then it it it changed a little bit because you could you you need to hire less, human workforce and can leverage AI. I mean, nowadays, you have companies which only have five employees and are very successful. But generally speaking, I think hiring is one of the most challenging aspect, of scaling a tech company. Because well, it's usually not the big issue to have, enough applications, for a certain shop. I mean, we, for example, have two or more than 2,000 applications just for seven open positions. So the challenge is not to to get the applications and to find a talent.

Jens-Philipp Jung | CEO and Co-Founder Link11 [00:24:57]:

The challenge is to hire the best talent out of this pool, especially if you are competing in a market with, US competitors, which usually have higher salaries than the European counterparts. So this really become a very tricky point. And if you if you hire the wrong people, you're not only using, obviously, money, but you're using also a lot of time, and a lot of pace. And this is really, I would say, the most challenging part of scaling the company and especially scaling the company very, very fast.

Jörn 'Joe' Menninger | Founder and Editor in Chief | Startuprad.io [00:25:37]:

Actually, my next question was about hiring, building a strong team. I would I would be curious, what qualities do you look for in hiring those people in order to scale?

Jens-Philipp Jung | CEO and Co-Founder Link11 [00:25:51]:

We believe that at the end, attitude and mindset matters the most. So, basically, if you have a very well skilled applicant but he's lazy, then this is not a good hire. So better hire somebody who really who really works hard, who want to achieve something, who really leans in because he can learn most of the things which are necessary. And so mindset mindset is super important. I would say, like, the single most important. And then, obviously, culture fit, which also belongs somehow, to a kind of mindset. Right? I mean, if if we have a culture where people want to to win and where we want to be successful and we really lean in and we are very supportive to each other, we basically have the motto, that when we work hard, we also work with a lot of fun. So this this culture map or this culture match obviously needs to be achieved.

Jens-Philipp Jung | CEO and Co-Founder Link11 [00:27:02]:

Otherwise, the the higher the new person won't feel comfortable in the environment, and also vice versa.

Jörn 'Joe' Menninger | Founder and Editor in Chief | Startuprad.io [00:27:14]:

Interesting. But, as we know, culture eats strategy for breakfast. I was curious because you apparently do have partnerships in Link eleven, and what role did they play? Because, I read that you do have currently in one press release, I don't know if it's up to date, 11 locations across the world. I do believe that also works with partnerships of some kind. And what are the most important ones, and how, how did they work for you in order to help to scale?

Jens-Philipp Jung | CEO and Co-Founder Link11 [00:27:46]:

Our partnerships were very long time focused on go to market partnerships. So as we have developed a great solution, we only had a small amount of workforce for selling these solutions and also only limited capabilities in terms of marketing. So we have leveraged very, very early already partnerships from a go to market, go to market perspective. So meaning finding organizations, data center providers, hosting companies, managed service provider, consultancy organizations who help us with putting our technology and our product to the customer base. And while this was already the focus since quite a long, we have now also extended this focus to look more towards OEM partnerships, integrations, tech partnerships to not only leveraging from a go to market perspective, but also more from a product and strategic perspective, which is obviously a different a different kind of of tactic and, also very different from each other. But we believe if we are successful with these kind of partnerships, this would definitely make a diff a huge difference. And we also believe that joining forces and achieving something together, does not only make more fun, but also generates greater outcome.

Jörn 'Joe' Menninger | Founder and Editor in Chief | Startuprad.io [00:29:28]:

I see. We talked about cybersecurity here a lot, and it it is definitely an evolving space. I would be curious, what kind of trends are you looking for right now in a professional term? And on a private level, I do have the tendency to always ask all my guests in cybersecurity, on on what level is your paranoia for your company and you personally in terms of cybersecurity?

Jens-Philipp Jung | CEO and Co-Founder Link11 [00:30:03]:

Well, which of both should I answer first? Well, let's start with the trends. There are currently three big trends in the cybersecurity space. And, I mean, the first trend is very much in common with, like, in all industries, and we're speaking about the age of AI. So AI does not only make the companies and and and the workforce more efficient, it also makes the criminals and the attackers more efficient. So beside of super complex phishing attacks where you have, like, emulated video, voice, audio, and so on, which is super hard to detect. You also have more and more, complex AI attacks on network and application layers using more sophisticated tactics, more human looking traffic and approach than ever before because, I mean, in cybersecurity, it's always a challenge to find out, okay, what is legited, versus what is, like, malicious. And the more it looks like human traffic, the more difficult it is to identify it. So AI definitely changes the game, and it also will create a lot of more cyberattacks because with, like, pipe coding and so on.

Jens-Philipp Jung | CEO and Co-Founder Link11 [00:31:35]:

And, yes, currently, many models, block such requests, but they also they also AIs out there which don't block any malicious activity where you can ask an AI to say, like, hey. Please please develop me a virus. Please develop me an attack, Adidas attack, program and application and and similar things. So this this would just basically increase the amount of attacks and also increase very much the sophistication of attack. So this is trend number one, AI, which makes cyberattacks more serious and more often. And then the second trend in, cybersecurity is the so called shift left approach. This shift left approach basically mean that in the past, you had, like, classical development, and then you had, like, an DevOps team who operating the application, and sometimes you had a network team. And then you had somewhere at the end, the security team.

Jens-Philipp Jung | CEO and Co-Founder Link11 [00:32:37]:

So which means, like, okay. Then the security guys need to live with whatever they receive from the development and application team and from the operating team and then try trying to build the walls around it and and fix it and and make it secure. And the shift left approach is like to to put cybersecurity more towards the development of the application, like native integrations in the applications. And this, at the end, will hopefully lead to, or the I mean, the idea is that this leads to more safer applications and, not only, like, patching vulnerabilities, but also, like, avoiding vulnerabilities and and creating a wall and safer environment. I hope, that the AI applications, which are now generated, also has a nice, yeah, security concept already integrated. And the third big trend in cybersecurity is the so called zero trust trend. So zero trust means in cybersecurity, basically, that you need to design an your architecture, your IT architecture in a way that you could not longer trust the, other devices in your network, for example. But, also, you you are not % sure if you could trust the current request and application and also the user in front, of this application.

Jens-Philipp Jung | CEO and Co-Founder Link11 [00:34:11]:

So imagine a very, very simple kind of zero trust initiative. Imagine you are in a office and you leave your computer. Right? Normally, you say, like, yeah. No issue. I left my computer. What should happen? All of the people here in the building are working for the same organization. All of these people here in the building are, are good humans, so nothing could happen. But your trust means, for example, also that you think about okay.

Jens-Philipp Jung | CEO and Co-Founder Link11 [00:34:39]:

But what actually one of this person does not only has good things in mind. So, therefore, you lock your computer when you leave, the the desktop in your office even if in in in the in in the early days, right, you you never thought about, okay, somebody of your colleagues could do some vulnerabilities things on your computer. So this is like the zero trust trend, and it starts with, like, the user. It goes over application. It goes over networks. So also in the past, you have typically built these corporate networks by by protecting the perimeter, and you have your DMZ, the dematerialized zone. So everything within the corporate network was trustable. Everything outside of the corporate network was not trustable.

Jens-Philipp Jung | CEO and Co-Founder Link11 [00:35:25]:

And the zero trust initiative basically says, like, hey. Also, everything within your network, don't trust them. Have have certain rules, firewalls, and so on in place. Because imagine, if one device in the corporate network gets hacked for whatever reason without, like, having the zero trust approach and, like, multiple segmentations, these these initial infection could spread across the whole corporate network. And in the past, this was the case, and in the past, this was also why there was huge incidents and huge ransomware attacks and large corporates get down for multiple days, weeks, and even months, and there was also some companies get bang bang up because of that. And and the zero trust approach basically wants to to mitigate all of this and saying, like, okay. If you get infected, it does not spread around. So these are the three trends.

Jens-Philipp Jung | CEO and Co-Founder Link11 [00:36:17]:

And, you have also asked me about what is my paranoid level that we have a cyber attack? I mean, we have cyber attack every day on Link 11, and, we were able to mitigate all of them until now, and, I'm also very optimistic that we are able to mitigate them in the future. Mitigate, like, hundreds of cyber attacks each day. And we also have, like, all of these certifications, ISO, PCI, SOC two. We are currently working on PCI c five. So we really invest a lot, obviously, as a cybersecurity company in our cybersecurity. So I'm my so my paranoid level is quite high in terms of, otherwise, we would not invest that much and would not put that much effort into it. But my saying, my really concerns that we have an issue are quite low because I know that we are very well protected.

Jörn 'Joe' Menninger | Founder and Editor in Chief | Startuprad.io [00:37:15]:

That's pretty good that you guys are well protected. And I was wondering with those cyberattacks on link 11, if your opponents are not only training you to be better. But that's a different topic. I've seen a lot of interesting case studies. What are you protecting here? For example, what I found pretty impressive is Fraport, Europe's one of Europe's busiest airports, as well as Deutsche Volkseschung, which is the navigation air navigation service provider that makes sure, like, all flight movements, all plane movements are secure in the German airspace. So can you share some particularly challenging cases and how you handle them to provide cybersecurity for such places?

Jens-Philipp Jung | CEO and Co-Founder Link11 [00:38:05]:

Critical aspects of cyberattacks is always the time. So because cyberattacks usually, the damage the cyberattacks could cause is or close with the time the cyberattacks, exist. So, therefore, it's very, very important to act super fast and reducing with that fast response also the potential impact of a cyberattack. So a quite common case is if it that if there is a cyber attack with somebody who has not yet implemented any protection yet. Right? It's it's really like an kind of emergency case. So you need to imagine the company is offline. They they have invested millions in operating the business, and then suddenly everything stands still. They lose tons of money every minute this situation continues.

Jens-Philipp Jung | CEO and Co-Founder Link11 [00:39:06]:

They don't have visibility of the business. Their customers can't reach them. They are maybe facing some, damage claims because of non availability and service interruption. So this is a serious situation, and these these these incidents, these, actual cyberattacks, this is always, yeah, particularly challenged, not only for the company, but also for us. And we have playbooks to handle this situation when customers call our emergency hotline. It's really like the it's it's like the firefighters. You call 110, hailing 11 here, what happened, and then we we get the the information what actually happened. Then we say, like, okay.

Jens-Philipp Jung | CEO and Co-Founder Link11 [00:39:51]:

Look. This is our playbook. This is how how we act. We need to I mean, we also need to sometimes camp down the or or or or, how how to say, to to relax the people on the other side because, I mean, for us, it's kind of daily business. I mean, luckily, not every day we have these emergency situations, from from unprotected customers, but we we are used to it. But for the other side, it's like a new experience, obviously. And, yeah, this is this is always interesting situation, and it's it reminds you really like the firefighters. So, hey.

Jens-Philipp Jung | CEO and Co-Founder Link11 [00:40:27]:

This is the playbook. This is how we solve the situation. And this is this is how, we can help

Jörn 'Joe' Menninger | Founder and Editor in Chief | Startuprad.io [00:40:36]:

them. Great. We'll be back after a very short ad break. Hey, guys. Thank you for sticking around. The interview with, Jens is actually so extensive and running so well that we decided to split this into two parts, and we'll be back with recording number two, pretty soon.

Jens-Philipp Jung | CEO and Co-Founder Link11 [00:40:58]:

Thank you very much.

Jörn 'Joe' Menninger | Founder and Editor in Chief | Startuprad.io [00:40:59]:

Thank you for sticking around, and talk to you soon.

Jens-Philipp Jung | CEO and Co-Founder Link11 [00:41:02]:

Talk to you soon.

Jörn "Joe" Menninger | CEO and Founder Startuprad.io [00:41:08]:

That's all, folks. Find more news, streams, events, and interviews @ at www.startuprad.io. Remember, sharing is caring.

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