Apart from antivirus applications, the cybersecurity industry has traditionally been business-to-business, with regular Internet users left to protect themselves. Perhaps the most vulnerable are older people who didn’t grow up with the Internet and smartphones.
ZoraSecure, a startup founded by sisters Catherine Karow and Ellie King Karow, wants to step in and help them. Their idea is to create an app that not only protects older adults from scammers and hackers, but also teaches them how to stay protected through gamified microlearning, Catherine and Ellie told TechCrunch ahead of the TechCrunch Disrupt conference, where ZoraSecure will be a part of Startup Battlefield.
The app is not available yet, but Catherine and Ellie expect it to be launched in a month. They said it could cost $12.99 monthly for individual subscribers and a higher rate for family and group plans.
Catherine explained during the phone interview that the first version of the app will have several features resembling a mode to scan QR codes for malware or phishing, the ability to send suspicious texts and emails to ZoraSecure for review, and a feature to share known scams or threats with apps so they’ll be added to a database to help other users.
“We’re trying to encourage the sharing of scams on social media so that we can alert the entire Zora network at once, so that one person is alerted to the scam, and then we can make sure that everyone in that community is immediately protected,” Catherine said.
Future versions will also include a feature that will allow users to trick ZoraSecure into joining a suspicious phone call, so that the company’s AI system can detect whether it is a scam or a fake call. However, according to Catherine, in this case the application will not listen in or record conversations.
When the app detects a threat, it will launch a chat that will explain to the user what the threat is and teach them how to detect and deal with similar situations in the future, Ellie said.
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“The goal of this is to build resilience and hopefully make it so that even if you’re not interacting face-to-face with the app, you’re a little more aware when you’re interacting online,” she added.
Ellie said the AI engine was designed with privacy in mind and does 85% of the processing on the device and only 15% in the cloud, which she said will be “cleaned of your personal data before it leaves your device.”
Catherine also said they plan to create an “NFC sticker” that will be placed on phone cases so that users can quickly launch the app if they receive a fake call or even if they fall and need to alert their caregivers. This is one way they plan to get around iOS’ restrictions on apps monitoring what’s happening in other apps. Another way is to have a “Share on ZoraSafe” option in the iOS menu, which will allow users to send text messages or emails to company systems.
Ultimately, the sisters stated that they wanted to make ZoraSecure also available to children, establish cooperation with schools, and launch the application in various languages, starting with Spanish.