Antivirus apps aside, the cybersecurity industry has traditionally been business-to-business, with ordinary internet users having to protect themselves. And older adults, who did not grow up with the internet or smartphones, are perhaps the most vulnerable.
ZoraSafe, a startup founded by sisters Catherine and Ellie King Carrow, wants to step in and help them. As Catherine and Ellie told TechCrunch ahead of the TechCrunch Disrupt conference, where ZoraSafe will be part of Startup Battlefield, their idea is to create an app that not only protects seniors from scammers and hackers, but also teaches them how to stay safe through gamified microlearning.
The app hasn’t been released yet, but Katherine and Ellie plan to do so within a month. Individual subscribers will pay $12.99 per month, and family and group plans will cost even more.
The first version of the app will have several features, Katherine said over the phone, including a mode that scans QR codes for malware and phishing, the ability to send suspicious SMS text messages and emails to ZoraSafe for checkout, and the ability to share known scams and threats with the app so they can be added to its database to help other users.
“We try to encourage social sharing of scams, so we can also alert the entire Zora network at once, so if one person is alerted to a scam, everyone in that community is immediately protected,” Catherine said.
Future releases will also include the ability for users to acquire ZoraSafe to participate in suspicious calls, and the company’s AI system will be able to detect whether they are scams or deepfake calls. However, in that case, Katherine says the app won’t listen to or record the call.
Ellie said that when the app detects a threat, it launches a chat that explains to the user what the threat is and teaches them how to spot and deal with similar situations in the future.
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“The whole purpose of it is to build resilience and, hopefully, be a little more aware when you’re interacting online, even if you’re not directly interacting with an app,” she added.
Ellie said the AI engine was designed with privacy in mind, with 85% of its processing performed on the device and only 15% in the cloud, claiming that “personal information is sanitized before it leaves the device.”
Catherine also said she plans to create an “NFC sticker” that will be integrated into the case of a mobile phone, allowing users to quickly launch the app if they receive a deepfake call or if they fall and need to alert a caregiver. This is one way to get around iOS restrictions on apps that monitor what’s happening in other apps. Another option is to have a “Share to ZoraSafe” option in the iOS menu that allows users to send text messages and emails to your company’s systems.
Eventually, the sisters said they hope to expand ZoraSafe to children, partner with schools and release the app in different languages, including Spanish.
To learn more about ZoraSafe, check out dozens of other companies, hear their pitches, and hear from guest speakers on four different stages, attend Disrupt in San Francisco from October 27th to 29th. Click here for more information.
