Security leader who ships

CTO-turned cybersecurity practitioner. I align stakeholders, reduce risk, and make security a company value—without slowing delivery.

Yoni Binstock

About

I've spent over a decade building and leading engineering teams with security woven into infrastructure, development, and culture. In my last role as CTO, I led a 12-person Dev/IT team, created incident-response and disaster-recovery playbooks grounded in NIST and OWASP, and ran monthly security workshops that materially reduced risk.

I bring a calm, checklist-driven mindset from my experience as an EMT, pilot, scuba diving instructor, and member of the LA Community Emergency Response Team.

What I'm best at: aligning executives on a risk-first roadmap, making guardrails easy for engineers, and turning telemetry into action.

Key Strengths

  • Executive alignment on security strategy
  • Risk-first approach to security
  • Calm crisis management
  • Technical execution with strategic vision

Skills & Certifications

Ops/Blue Team

  • Threat detection
  • Incident Response
  • Vulnerability management
  • SIEM, EDR/XDR, SOAR

GRC

  • NIST CSF/RMF
  • ISO 27001
  • GDPR compliance
  • Control testing
  • Vendor risk assessment

AppSec/Engineering

  • DevSecOps
  • IAM/RBAC
  • Zero Trust architecture
  • STRIDE threat modeling
  • SAST/DAST, CVSS

Tools & Leadership

  • Splunk, Nessus, Wireshark
  • Python, Linux, SQL, JS/TS
  • Team leadership & hiring
  • Cross-functional execution

Certifications

Google Cybersecurity CompTIA Security+ CISSP (Assoc.) BTL1 CISM

Projects

Phishing Click-Rate Cut

Problem: High susceptibility to phishing attacks across the organization.

Approach: Comprehensive workshops, regular drills, reward systems, and executive reporting dashboards.

Impact: Achieved significant culture shift with measurable reduction in click-through rates.

−73% click-through 12-month program Exec reporting

Physical–Digital Convergence

Problem: Weak incident reconstruction capabilities between physical and digital security.

Approach: Integrated AI cameras with RFID/2FA systems, normalized data to Splunk with correlation rules.

Impact: Faster investigations with fewer blind spots in security coverage.

12 cameras and RFID readers installed Splunk correlation GDPR compliance

NIST-Aligned Cyber Playbook

Problem: Ad-hoc escalation processes during security incidents.

Approach: Developed severity matrix, MITRE ATT&CK-mapped runbooks, integrated DR/BCP procedures.

Impact: Reduced MTTR and smoother executive communications during incidents.

24 IR runbooks MITRE ATT&CK BCP hooks

Zero Trust Identity Overhaul

Problem: Inconsistent MFA and broad, static privileges increased breach risk and audit exposure.

Approach: Enforced MFA across all systems; standardized RBAC with least-privilege roles; removed standing admin access in favor of just-in-time elevation with approvals; instituted quarterly access reviews with evidence capture.

Impact: Fewer access-related incidents and cleaner audits; engineers gained faster, clearer access paths without expanding blast radius.

Org-wide MFA RBAC & least privilege Quarterly access reviews

Contact

Open to roles where I can reduce risk, strengthen resilience, and align executives with security strategy (Security Engineer, GRC/Program, IR). Based in LA, remote-friendly.

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