SecureWorld News

How Do You Say 'CISO'?

Written by Drew Todd | Mon | Jan 18, 2021 | 1:30 PM Z

If you work in cybersecurity, you probably already know what CISO stands for: Chief Information Security Officer.

The number and prominence of CISOs continues to grow as organizations get more serious about improving their security posture.

However, a burning question remains: how do you pronounce CISO?

CISO falls into the category of acronyms that have more than one correct pronunciation, such as tomato vs. to-mahto, potato vs. po-tahto, caramel vs. car-mel, and data vs. day-tuh.

To get to the bottom of this hot debate, SecureWorld asked security leaders at our virtual conference series how they say CISO. 

Survey results: how do you pronounce CISO?

There are three main ways that CISO can be pronounced, although perhaps you could come up with more:
  • See So
  • Sih So / Sisso
  • See-Eye-Ess-Oh

So what's the answer to the burning question here? 

Overwhelmingly, SecureWorld attendees voted that "See So" was the correct response. That pronunciation received 72% of the votes.

In second place, with roughly 19% of the votes, was "Sih-So / Sisso." To some, this pronunciation is worth a chuckle.

And in last place, the pronunciation that is least common: just saying the letters C-I-S-O, pronounced "See-Eye-Ess-Oh." We noticed that some of the votes for pronouncing it this way came from those close to retirement and also those nearer the beginning of their information security careers.

This is how you pronounce the word CISO

So there you have it. Our very scientific survey results reveal that "See-So" is the way to pronounce CISO.

Do you agree or disagree? Let us know how you say it in the comments below.

[RESOURCE: The SecureWorld Virtual Conference Series]