CIS Benchmarks Community Volunteer Spotlight: Bruce Bading

The Center for Internet Security^® (CIS^®) relies on a global community of IT security professionals to develop and maintain theindependent, vendor-agnostic security guidance of the CIS Benchmarks^™. These volunteers provide their expertise for the benefit of all those who seek to use the internet safely and securely.

Meet Bruce Bading, President and CEO of BFB Consulting, Inc. He began his career in 1979 as CFO and Manager of Industrial Infra-Red, a large industrial company in San Antonio, Texas. In his career, he has served as a Senior Cybersecurity Consultant for IBM, leading enterprise risk management programs for the world’s largest retailers, banks, and organizations. He's also provided business management and cybersecurity consulting as a contractor.

Bading became a CIS Community member after retiring from IBM and assuming full-time leadership of BFB Consulting, Inc. in 2017. As a volunteer, he contributed to the initial draft of the CIS Critical Security Controls^® (CIS Controls^®) mapping to the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS), and he helped develop the very first IBM i CIS Benchmark. Since then, he has helped author updated versions of the IBM i CIS Benchmarks, and he has recruited new and important contributors to the Community.

“Prior to 2017 when I was a Senior Cybersecurity Consultant at IBM, we were early adopters and promoters of the CIS Benchmarks,” said Bading. “Basically, being an employee of IBM meant that I had full access to the CIS Controls and CIS Benchmarks from the very beginning.”

He added, “The wealth of information from SANS, NIST, and other sources is large and difficult to read. CIS provides the most concise and easiest-to-understand source information from all of these other resources under one organization.”

As a member of the Open Compliance and Ethics Group (OCEG), ISACA, and other groups, Bading does his best to promote the CIS Benchmarks wherever he goes.

"The Center of Internet Security is the largest consortium of subject matter experts in the world, with members from highly respected companies all sharing the combined knowledge of diverse and interconnected groups, the brightest minds, and the most experienced experts from every field in the industry."

Interested in becoming a volunteer like Bruce Bading?