Pronouncing Security Vendor Names

CrowdStrike is pronounced 'KROWD-stryk' — 'Crowd' (KROWD, rhymes with 'loud'), then 'Strike' (STRYK, rhymes with 'bike'). Stress on KROWD. Don't say 'krowd-STRYK'. In a technical interview: "We deploy KROWD-stryk Falcon agents on all endpoints — its behavioral AI detection catches threats that signature-based tools miss, especially novel malware."

Wiz is pronounced 'WIZ' — rhymes with 'biz', 'fizz', and 'quiz'. Short I, single syllable. Don't say 'WEEZ'. In a technical interview: "We use WIZ for cloud security posture management — it scans our entire AWS environment in minutes and shows attack paths that connect misconfigurations into exploitable chains."

Snyk is pronounced 'SNIK' — rhymes with 'sink' and 'link'. Single syllable. Don't spell it out as ES-en-why-kay. In a technical interview: "We run SNIK in our CI pipeline to scan npm dependencies for CVEs — it opens pull requests with dependency upgrades automatically when fixes are available."

Semgrep is pronounced 'SEM-grep' — 'Sem' (SEM, short E as in 'semantic'), then 'grep' as the Unix tool (GREP). Stress on SEM. Don't say 'sem-GREP'. In a technical interview: "We use SEM-grep for custom security linting — its pattern language mirrors source code structure so we can write rules for our specific internal API misuse patterns."

Lacework is pronounced 'LAYS-wurk' — 'Lace' (LAYS, rhymes with 'days'), then 'work' (WURK). Stress on LAYS. Don't say 'LAK-wurk'. In a technical interview: "We use LAYS-wurk for cloud workload protection — its Polygraph technology baselines normal behavior and alerts on deviations rather than relying on static rules."