CIS Benchmarks Community Volunteer Spotlight: Rick Handley

The CIS Benchmarks Community plays a crucial role in ensuring cyber safety. Through their collective knowledge, proven guidelines for cybersecurity measures are established and continuously updated. Volunteers play a pivotal role in this process — their skills enhance the reliability and effectiveness of these standards. The reciprocation of knowledge within this community greatly contributes to the evolution of cybersecurity practices worldwide, making it an indispensable asset in today's digitally connected world.

Rick Handley  is one such volunteer; he’s a Digital Defense strategist for Small Business at Digital Self-Defense℠ Alliance. Handley has 25+ years of experience in cybersecurity with a focus in cloud data protection, data privacy, M&A security, network security, and endpoint protection.

He has been a member of the CIS Benchmarks Community for 10 years. With a deep background in Microsoft 365 security, he joined the Microsoft 365 Benchmark Community in 2021.

As a Community member, he has developed a deeper understanding of cybersecurity measurement, metrics, and maturity.

“For those actively participating, it’s an opportunity to learn from other subject matter experts in your field, said Handley. “It’s also a fantastic way to rapidly gain insight into security controls available for various services.”

He volunteers outside of CIS in support of CIS Benchmarks and has presented at Information Systems Security Association (ISSA) chapter meetings on the Microsoft 365 Benchmarks.

"Whenever I needed to investigate how to mitigate gaps in complex environments, CIS Benchmarks are the first source we checked for mitigating controls. They have been a time-saver from that perspective and also lend respectability to architectural decisions since the Benchmarks are all referenceable against well-accepted frameworks.”

Handley added, “As a learning tool for controls related to unfamiliar technology, there is no better place to start than the CIS Benchmarks.

Handley’s employer Digital Self-Defense℠ Alliance leverages both Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace Foundation Benchmarks to protect small businesses and see them as an ideal baseline to establish reasonable security for very small businesses.

Interested in becoming a volunteer like Rick Handley? Join a CIS Community today!