Joey Pinz Discipline Conversations

#847 CyberBay 2026 - Catherine Karow: AI Scams Are Exploding — Are You Ready? 🤖

• Joey Pinz • Episode 847

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Cybercrime is evolving faster than most people realize — and AI is accelerating the threat. In this eye-opening episode of Joey Pinz Conversations, Joey Pinz sits down with cybersecurity expert and entrepreneur Catherine Karow to explore how artificial intelligence is transforming scams, fraud, and digital security.

From deepfake voice calls to identity theft targeting children and retirees, Catherine shares the real dangers facing families today and what people can do right now to protect themselves. Drawing from her experience in enterprise cybersecurity and her work building the family-focused protection platform Zora Safe, she reveals why everyday users are the most vulnerable and how awareness is the first line of defense.

Beyond cybersecurity, Catherine also shares her personal journey — from theater and programming to working on major tech projects and even contributing to initiatives connected with the White House. She opens up about overcoming health challenges, navigating the tech industry as a female entrepreneur, and building technology with purpose.

This conversation is packed with practical cybersecurity tips, real-world stories, and powerful insights about resilience, innovation, and protecting the people we love.

 

⭐ Top 3 Highlights

🔐 AI Deepfake Scams Are Here

Scammers can now clone a voice with just three seconds of audio, making fraud more convincing than ever.

📱 Your Phone Is the Biggest Security Risk

Mobile devices are now the #1 attack vector, surpassing traditional computers.

👨‍👩‍👧 Simple Steps to Protect Your Family

Freezing credit, using family codewords, and increasing digital awareness can dramatically reduce risk.

 

 

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Hosted by Joey Pinz, this Discipline Conversations Podcast offers insights and inspiration.

 

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SPEAKER_00

Cyber Bay 2026. What a great event this this was uh here in March in Tampa of 2026. Uh of course Arnie Bellini heads this great great initiative for uh Tampa Bay here. For the Cyber Bay uh 2026 event was excellent. Uh lots of great attendees, a great mix of attendees, great keynotes, great re-outs, and four straight vendors. And I was there had four great conversations, wonderful conversations. Uh Sandy Cronenberg started it off uh when AI can pretend to be you. Very interesting discussion with Sandy on that. Kat. Carol. Very, really, really intriguing uh woman. I really enjoyed our conversation. AI scams are exploding. Are you ready? Very, very uh interesting conversations. And of course with Linda Nihon of all incredible science, policy, and smart work in a changing world. Do you understand what it means, these policy departments and universities and what they do? I didn't. She sheds great light on it, great insight, wonderful talking to Linda. And then lastly, oh Kendra Siler. Really, really interesting talking with Kendra. How art, AI, and neuroscience shape a human mind. Really great conversation with Kendra. I wish her well and thank you all for your time. Thank you for watching. Listen, I am Joey Pins. And here's my 45-second introduction. After starting my business in the 90s, I started developing core habits of eating in my diet because of working way too much. Before you know, I found myself reading 140 heals. The doctor told me if I don't lose the weight, I'm not gonna see my daughter graduate. Took the next seven months, lost 130 miles. People think there's some secret. Ask me, How'd you lose that weight? Like there's some secret. There is no secret. How did I lose the weight in just one word? Discipline. I've had other successes in life, and I attribute them all to discipline. Now I'm not thinking of discipline, but I believe that it can help all of us. Friends, colleagues convinced me to start a podcast. Podcast mission? How do we better ourselves and society? I talk to interesting people in health, fitness, sport, wellness, business, technology, science, art, and culture. And I eventually asked them how discipline plays a role in their life. Podcast vision growth through learning from others. It's really, really, really nice to meet you. It's nice to meet you. You grew up in the theater.

SPEAKER_01

I did, yeah. I uh bit the theater bug in like ninth grade. My next door neighbor actually was my drama teacher. So I did that all through high school and loved it. I was already a bit of a computer nerd at that point. Um, but yeah. And then I went to college for it.

SPEAKER_00

For theater. Wow.

SPEAKER_01

And art.

SPEAKER_00

A bit of a departure. Yeah. A lot of times you don't see the computer people doing No, yeah, you usually don't.

SPEAKER_01

On, you know, I think it's it's an interesting part of my brain. I'm on the nor, you know, I'm neurodivergent, so I have the ability to visualize systems and it makes sense to me.

SPEAKER_00

And when you're in theater, you were an actor? You were a director.

SPEAKER_01

Acting, yes, but I'm good at mimicry.

SPEAKER_00

What is it, what's the difference?

SPEAKER_01

So, mimicry, you're you're able to like meet someone and understand their movements, their body, their behavior intimately enough to be able to go and recreate that on stage.

SPEAKER_00

So you can mimic me?

SPEAKER_01

I mean, not perfectly. I'm not gonna sound exactly like you, but I physically could.

SPEAKER_00

Interesting. Just by our observation here.

SPEAKER_01

Yes.

SPEAKER_00

But when you're told to act, one has to kind of create that character.

SPEAKER_01

Absolutely. Yeah, you build it up over time. That's what all those rehearsals are for, right? You're practicing getting that movement right, getting everything right, how you walk, how you breathe, how you lift your shoulders when you're talking, how your hands move, everything. So it takes a lot.

SPEAKER_00

Wow. And because of this, you don't have any stage fright, you No, yeah.

SPEAKER_01

That's actually the positive thing. I will say I'm not good like networking, going around just like randomly talking to people, but on stage I'm fine.

SPEAKER_00

It's random, I know. And do you do any theater now?

SPEAKER_01

I was doing community theater on the side. I sort of um I was I was wanting to do theater, and then I my health got a little worse, and uh I needed health insurance, really. That's what it came down to. And so I sort of fell back to my second love, which was tech, and started working in the tech area industry. And I was already like programming and front end when I went to college, so I it felt natural to move into like a webmaster role.

SPEAKER_02

I see.

SPEAKER_01

Um back when that was actually the thing. Yeah. Um and then I uh you know I moved up the hard way in tech. Help desk to you know, help desk helping the supercomputer, and then you know, from there.

SPEAKER_00

When you say programming front end, you mean the un UI? You mean the interface?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, for individual programming languages for the front end, user interface side, yeah.

SPEAKER_00

I see. Now, Kat, you have something that I can't pronounce, anecosoling sponditis.

SPEAKER_01

Enkelosing spondylitis.

SPEAKER_00

What should we know about that?

SPEAKER_01

It's a hereditary autoimmune condition that affects your skeletal system. So I it's I have a lot of symptoms like somebody with MS physically, uh, a lot of pain every day when I wake up. Um and I have flare-ups that it's basically my body's fighting itself on a regular basis. So it makes life a little bit difficult, but you know.

SPEAKER_00

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SPEAKER_01

Thank you. I appreciate that. Yeah. And how does tech help you? I mean, it seems Well, you know, I was lucky to fall back into this career. I've always loved computers and I found them fascinating, you know, from the time I built my first one. So it was lucky for me to be able to fall back into a career that just went gangbusters from there, you know. And then, of course, COVID happened, and it even helped me even more because of my disability. I have flare-ups where I have mobility issues. I can't physically get to work. And so I would miss work. And then I had attendance issues with work, and all of that just compounds. And if you can't work remotely and there aren't enough remote jobs, then you're just left, you know, to drift. And so it was like, okay, well, I need better health insurance, I need a job where I can sit at a computer, and you know. And uh COVID, you know, remote jobs popped up, and I was able to move from one company to the a DOT software company, then to Apple, then to, you know, projects for the White House.

SPEAKER_00

Wow. What's it like at Apple?

SPEAKER_01

Apple, when I was there, was very disjointed. Like they had a lot of people doing managerial work. Really? Lots of managers. It seemed like an overwhelming amount of managers and project managers because they didn't have processes automated and streamlined very well. Um, and while I was there, we literally transitioned them to a new project managing system to try to clean it up. But it was a bit of a cluster, I'll be honest.

SPEAKER_00

Wow, it sounds like too many cooks and not enough ships. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, and then they wanted us to move back to Apple Park, and I was like, nope, not California.

SPEAKER_02

Oh.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, Silicon Valley. It's a giant campus they had built, and then COVID happened and everybody left, and it's like just sitting there, you know. It's a beautiful campus. I'm just not gonna commute an hour and a half to work every day.

SPEAKER_00

Is this the the new circle building? The circle building, yeah, yeah, that's the one. It's a fascinating company, trillion dollars.

SPEAKER_01

It's really fascinating. Honestly, what I was doing was managing all digital um imagery and editing for the like App Store and Apple.com. So anytime there was like a new release or like Chinese New Year and something was coming out, all of that stuff that had to be done for that, I was managing to make sure it was getting put together and then published.

SPEAKER_02

Wow.

SPEAKER_01

Um so it was, you know, but you're getting, there's a lot of cooks in a lot of kitchens and you're having to like manage it and you know. So it's lots of cats.

SPEAKER_00

Coming from small business and a small business, it's very tough to when I have these larger clients like that, and there's the layers you have to go through in these unnecessary meetings.

SPEAKER_01

Absolutely. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

It's so frustrating.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, I've been with a number of companies like consulting, and then I, you know, I went to uh Guidepoint Security for a while, and I was managing an AppSec team, and um they have a bunch of clients, you know, like United Airlines, Kraft Foods, and some banks.

SPEAKER_02

Right.

SPEAKER_01

And it just becomes such a bloated organization and they get very siloed as they get larger, right? And then it's creates such a cluster of communication issues and code issues and pipeline issues. It's just a you know, so coming in afterwards and being able to identify each of those problems and then smooth them out, it's it kind of what I ended up being good at. Huh. Because I had to do it so much.

SPEAKER_00

Right, right, and got used to it.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. And I recognize patterns.

SPEAKER_00

Ah. How tell me about that.

SPEAKER_01

Uh that's just part of the neurodivergency, I think. You know. So I I I recognize patterns easier. Um give me an example. Well, in in code, that's a good one, you know, when you're or when you are looking at a process. Um, like for example, I came into a company one time and they were using Salesforce. A lot of companies use Salesforce. Salesforce can be a fantastic tool, but it can also be a very bloated tool that you don't know what you're doing with, right? I came in and they had created a flow for their sales team, right? That had, I think it was like 15 or 20 steps to get to like the final closing. And it was like, okay, this is bloated for absolutely no reason. Why? So then I had to go through and identify each one of those steps, and then once you can, you can identify why those are there, why they put them there. Do we actually need it there? No, we don't need that there. It shouldn't be there. You know? So you have to map the whole thing, be able to visualize that, and then clean it up.

SPEAKER_00

And it's if you're coming from the outside, sometimes it's less difficult to see these issues.

SPEAKER_01

Absolutely, absolutely. And then you also don't have the biasy of being in a department, right? So we and you have a frame of reference that you're closed by, so and you're not going to your teammates and going, so what's this process look for you? What does this pro you know? And that's my job. And I can come in there and just it doesn't matter who you are. What are you doing? What's your process? What does it look like? And what do you need it to do?

SPEAKER_00

Wonderful. We're here at Cyber Bay event here in Tampa. What's some of your goals today and tomorrow?

SPEAKER_01

Uh well, uh, I'm gonna go watch a talk by a friend of mine here at 11 o'clock, which should be great. He's um hosting TEDx Sarasota, which I'm I'm talking next week, so I'm gonna have to meet up with him. Thank you. Oh, that's and then um today at four, I have a talk on the new gold rush. Explain. How AI is supercharging cybercrime as a service. Um is this gonna be your first TEDx? Yes. Yes and it's gonna be on? Data privacy rights.

SPEAKER_00

It's right here in Sarasota. Maybe I should go. You should. I hope you do. I went to the one here uh for University of Tampa on Bay Shore. I I did one, I did one back in October. Yeah, and uh they're great.

SPEAKER_01

Are they? It's my first, we'll see. It is a lot of work, yeah. I think I have rewritten my speech like a million times at this point. I like Norman, I'm about to meet up with him, but he was laughing at me, probably. Like, I've this is another version, I'm so sorry.

SPEAKER_00

Don't forget And you think you have it and you can review it.

SPEAKER_01

And then you're working on it on stage and you're like, okay, that needs to be fixed. I can't do that. Yeah, it's just you know, we'll get there.

SPEAKER_00

There's a lot to it. Tell me about Zorosafe.

SPEAKER_01

Zora Safe is a company I started. Um, my mom got scammed, and my sister has kids, and you know, they're about to that age where they're about to get devices, and it's like there's so many people in my family that I want to protect. And I started looking for tools on the market to solve that problem of scams and fraud, and and I couldn't find anything. And so I sat down with my sister and I said, I think we could build something to fix this. And I've worked on the cybersecurity side, but enterprise, you know, corporate level for so long. I know we have the tools to fix this. They're just cost prohibitive and they're not set up for the everyday user, right? And it there's also a barrier to market there. The everyday user has a lack of understanding of how bad it has gotten. Those of us in cybercrime totally understand that. We're seeing it on a regular basis, the increase. Um, and we're kind of panicky about fixing those gaps as fast as we can. But the everyday user, they don't realize how easy it is to create an AI mimicked voice and call your mom and fake a, you know, a car wreck and you need to send money, you know? It's very easy. It takes three seconds of your voice to make an AI-generated deep fake of it. Three seconds, and that's it. And we're seeing people across the board get scammed. And Florida, we are the number one target for scams and fraud. We are the number one, we're leading the nation in uh losses for scams and fraud. Yeah, it's one wonderful, isn't it? Um and I think identity theft is like right behind it.

SPEAKER_00

Because of the elderly population?

SPEAKER_01

Yes, most of that, yeah. The retirees are the number one target now. Um, kids are now the number three target. Yeah, and they are wanted for different things, right? So kids are wanted for their credit, and they go immediately for identity. Um, because then they're using that identity for years before that child ever gets 18, applies for their first credit card, and finds out. I know about this intimately. My mom's wallet was stolen when I was a kid, and it was years until we found out, and it was a worn out for I think my arrest and my sister's arrest in multiple states. We weren't even old enough to have bank accounts at this point. Um and it took us years of living in that red tape to fix it. Um think about that. Now one in four kids will have their identity stolen before they're 18 now, right? And that's just starting life in the red. It's terrifying. Yeah. But the senior population are the number one target. Like villages is the number one most attacked zip code in America. Is that right in Orlando?

SPEAKER_00

Wow.

SPEAKER_01

And Sarasota and this area are right behind it. Because you have a lot of retirees and a lot of retirees that have savings, decent retirement accounts. And that's why we talk about, I mean, Zora Safe, I go around and I raise awareness on this all the time because that's really the crux of the issue. You have to know you're under attack to be able to fight back. And if you don't realize you're under attack, you're not gonna fight. You're not gonna recognize what they're doing to fight, you know? So that's it. Zora Safe, we've also built a mobile platform to protect people from it. So it's an app you can go download and it'll stop scams and fraud. And you can talk to Zora, it's a little fox. She'll answer your cybersecurity questions. And I built the AI to process over 80% of all of the processing on device. Wow. So we can sift out things like protected information, you know, photos that your kids are sending to somebody by accident, that kind of stuff. That's all in our wheelhouse because we want to actually be able to holistically protect the family and not just one channel, like just SMS or just phone calls. Right. And that's what we're seeing. The gaps are where they get in.

SPEAKER_00

And some common practices people should employ to protect themselves?

SPEAKER_01

Right now, freeze your credit. I know it's I know it's a pain when you have to go and apply for things, but how many how often do you actually apply for something? And really, if you're applying for it quickly, do you need to apply for it? Right? So freeze your credit right now, and especially for your children. If you have children, there's absolutely no reason for it to be open. Right. Go freeze it. Your parents, your family, just sit down and have a conversation and set a family code word. I know it's silly, I know it sounds silly, but if your mother gets an AI-generated deepfake call of you or your child and she sends money, are you gonna feel bad you didn't set that code word? Yeah, you will. And it takes five seconds to do it. You know, scammers they can create an AI generated deep fake. They cannot deepfake a code word you set with your family at the dinner table, right? So those are two easy ones right off the bat.

SPEAKER_00

Right off the bat. Yeah. What if discipline wasn't about punishment, but about unlocking your best self? I've spent two and a half years writing discipline for greatness. Because discipline changed my life. And I know it can change yours too. This isn't theory. Inside you'll find real practical steps you can use immediately to focus better, build stronger habits, reduce stress, accomplish your goals, and bring more balance to your life. Whether you're trying to get healthier, improve your career, or simply feel more control. This book gives you the framework. Start today. Grab your copy of Discipline for Greatness at JoeyPins.com slash book. Thank you. And once that code word is revealed, they need to refresh it?

SPEAKER_01

Well, yeah. So code words, yeah, absolutely. If somebody figures out your code word for sure, but you don't want to set something, it's gonna be easy. You don't want to use your dog's names or something, because that's easy to figure out, right? Um we actually in my app, that's funny, I set a rotating family passphrase. Interesting. And it rotates every like 10 minutes, and every member of that family, the grandparents, the children, the parents, whatever, they get the same passphrase, and all they have to do is open the app and say, okay, what's the passphrase?

SPEAKER_00

Just like an authenticator app. Absolutely. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

But easier.

SPEAKER_00

But easy.

SPEAKER_01

Because it's for seniors and kids.

SPEAKER_00

Right. Yeah. Does AI frighten you, concern you, give you hope?

SPEAKER_01

Both. Yeah, I love AI. I I mean I love tech, so I mean I wouldn't be in this career if I didn't. And I see so much hope from what we can do with it, what we can create and we can you know, and discover. But AI also has a distinct negative side, and we're watching that daily get worse, and we're not combating it fast enough. So, I mean, hence the reason for Azora Safe, honestly. Um, there are not enough protections direct to consumer right now. There are quite a few that are hitting the market for enterprise, but there's just not enough to h to help us, regular people, you know? And um AI is supercharging cybercrime as a service. Um, it's making that barrier to access that just is gone now, right? So, and the barrier to mass manipulate and hyper-realistically manipulate people. Um there's no barrier, right? So we're watching the whole landscape shift, which is why now retirees are the number one target, kids are number three, and small businesses are number two.

SPEAKER_00

Small businesses are number two.

SPEAKER_01

Yep, yep. Not the big boys.

SPEAKER_00

Right, right. Although we hear about them, but they're far or few between, right? We don't hear about the system. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01

No, you don't. You don't, but that's because the vast majority go out of business right after. They can't recover. The numbers are pretty sad and scary about that, actually. And they're a massive target and they don't realize it. And the number one attack vector now is your mobile device.

SPEAKER_00

Huh.

SPEAKER_01

Not a computer, mobile device.

SPEAKER_00

Because it's open and it's connected to the Wi-Fi.

SPEAKER_01

People aren't aren't careful about it. You join Wi-Fi in the airport, right? How many of you have joined Wi-Fi in the airport? Don't join Wi-Fi in the airport. I mean, or here. We're at a cybersecurity conference. When I was a kid, we'd come here to hack to cybersecurity conferences. That's where we'd practice. There'd be the CTF competitions, and when you're not in competition, you're practicing. Wow. Right? And this was before hack the box. So then hack the box came, and then we hacked in that, and that was safer, and that was great. But this was like a practice ground because everyone here should know, right? This is back in the day, okay? Like but that's you know, and airports, things like that are a high, high probability of having that already there, and all you have to do is create a spoof network that looks identical to the airport one, and you've got 15 million people signing into it.

SPEAKER_02

Right.

SPEAKER_01

I mean, that's so fast, right? And QR codes is a big one. People have no re no idea how many bad QR codes are out there, and they scan them, and that opens automatically on your device. Right. Right? So it can be an excu executable file that you're scanning. And you have no idea. And people I watched, I walked around a conference, I'm a real nerd here, I'm gonna reveal. I was at DragonCon with my partner, and we were walking around, and there were QR codes at literally every booth in like the artist's alley, and I was like, I'm not gonna scan any of these QR.

SPEAKER_02

What the heck are you doing? Right, who are these people?

SPEAKER_01

And he laughed at me and he was like, babe, no one, no one is thinking about that. They're all scanning on like and then he goes, Is there an app for that? And I was like, I don't know, but I'm gonna build it. So that's part of our app, too.

SPEAKER_00

So is there a question you wish more people would ask you?

SPEAKER_01

Um, gosh. Oh, that's so loaded. Yeah. In tech, yes. In being a female entrepreneur, definitely, yes. Yeah. Um, being a female in tech, yes. It's I think I actually I was at a women in tech event, a panel, I was a panelist like two nights ago, a Thai women event here in Tampa. And there was a man in the crowd that actually stood up and asked us a question, and I was really, really happy he did because it opened up a really powerful conversation. And he said, um, I have been in this entrepreneur environment for a while, and I don't see the difference between the male and female entrepreneur. Can you explain it from your perspective? What that was like. And I had never have never had anybody ask me that, and it is a very, very distinct. Distinct difference being a female in this environment, in a male-dominated environment. Cybersecurity through my career has, I mean, it's gotten so much better. When I back in the day, there were no females in my department. I mean, when they hired the first female director in the IT department at UF, I was like, oh my God, this is so cool. And then I left and I kept, you know, I just pushed. I pushed open those doors and I sat down in those chairs and I opened the conversation, but that is hard. Yeah. So hard to do. Especially when your ideas are being stolen, when sexual harassment. I mean, there's so many things that we go through that other people don't think about.

SPEAKER_00

Some examples?

SPEAKER_01

Sexual harassment's a good one. I was at a Florida venture comp conference last week, actually, or the week before last with my sister, and a venture capitalist at an event came up to her and sexually harassed her and then followed it up with you shouldn't wear heels, you can't run from me. Yeah, yeah. I mean, this is the kind of thing that women deal with, but it's part of our experience in life. That wasn't the first time. It's not gonna be the last time. It happens.

SPEAKER_00

Horrible.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, yeah, it is.

SPEAKER_00

What should male entrepreneurs be more aware of?

SPEAKER_01

Your female counterparts. Listen to them. They might be quiet because they don't have your confidence. They're not empowered to talk like you are. Um let them. Give them the space to talk. Um and promote them because their brains are what's important.

SPEAKER_02

Yes.

SPEAKER_01

Not what they are saying in a board room or you know, how they're schmoozing with the other men in the department. Their work is what should matter. And my god, don't steal a female's ideas because she's not louder than you.

SPEAKER_00

That happens.

SPEAKER_01

Hell yeah, it does. Happened to me multiple times. I actually one time I was in right after college, I started working for Verizon Wireless because they paid well and I could go right into the tech department. I was actually physically fixing phones, like replacing the microphones back in the day when we had flip phones and you know, did that stuff. But we were a top 10 store in the US. Very, very busy, high foot traffic, randomly in Spartanburg, South Carolina, though. Uh just there was no other Verizon for like a tri-county area. So everyone would come in there, which meant we had incredibly long lines. And at that point, I was like basically managing this like tech team at this, and we'd have lines like 30, 40 people out the door waiting, because they drove an hour to come see us to get something fixed, right? I mean, massively bad. And I learned really quickly if I lifted up my head, made eye contact with somebody when they came in the door, smiled at them, and just said, I'll be right with you. Uh that it lifted the customer satisfaction immediately. Then I moved to the next step that was going out to the line and actually saying, Hey, what can what can I help you with? Okay, that's this line over here. Because I realized we were sending them different places after they got to us, right? Once that, I started making a list, and then after that, we improved it and put somebody at the door greeting them and making a list. What are you here for? Okay, that's this line over here. That increased our customers, our sales, our customer satisfaction. Our store went from not being a top 10 to being a top 10 in the US. And do you know who took credit for that? The store manager, and then my district manager got a Nash nationwide award for it.

unknown

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

Never recognizing you.

SPEAKER_01

No, and you know what happened a year later? It went nationwide. So my customer service process. Yes, and now it's a kiosk in the Verizon store and the Apple store, which defeats the purpose of actually greeting a customer when I designed the system. But you know, that's that was the first one, first time I experienced it. And then I went to uh UF and I had a similar experience there. University of Florida. Yeah. Yeah, I was I was managing the UF Computing Help Desk supercomputing support. Um we had just built the Hypergator, which was really, really cool. I'm sorry, the what? Hypergator, which was the supercomputer at UF. We had like 32 computer. The hypergator. Yes, yeah.

SPEAKER_00

Gator is the mascot of the University of Florida. And this is the hypergator, yes.

SPEAKER_01

A high performance computing.

SPEAKER_00

I see.

SPEAKER_01

Um yeah, and so we had like 32,000 processors working in tandem, and it was pretty amazing. But I had a side job managing at the help desk because the we didn't have the user base to like make that my full-time gig. I was the identity ma and identity access manager, and I helped build the restricted data environment with that team, and we just didn't have enough users yet to make it full. So I was still working at the help desk, and that was the most toxic job environment I had ever been in in my entire life. And still, to this day, it's the most toxic environment I've ever been in.

SPEAKER_00

Why?

SPEAKER_01

The men that was man the man that was managing it. I mean, he got fired a couple years later. I was still there when he got fired. Sexual harassment and a couple of other things. Um he started, he was married with multiple kids and started a relationship with a student employee and promoted her multiple times. I mean, stole my ideas numerous times. I mean, it was so toxic. They tried to keep me, then they wouldn't give me a pay raise because I didn't have my degree. I left early. So it didn't matter how much I could program, it didn't matter how smart I was. They wanted a piece of paper. Right. And I realized that that's academia. So I had to leave academia. And as soon as I left academia, I was able to move up in my career and I was able to take on work that I actually enjoyed doing and learn more, which is what I wanted.

SPEAKER_00

So everybody wins.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_00

Is there something, Kat, you believe strongly in 10 years ago you no longer believe?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, I yeah. I think uh I believed 10 years ago that I couldn't break into the C-suite of cybersecurity and tech. Um, and I was wrong.

SPEAKER_00

Definitely wrong.

SPEAKER_01

Yes, definitely wrong.

SPEAKER_00

The moment that you realized was what what happened?

SPEAKER_01

When I had someone at well, I had a CEO ask me for help. Huh. And then another came, and then I got that job at the White House, and then it was like, okay, I'm actually reporting to the OCIO at the White House. OCIO. The chief information officer. And that right there, I mean, there's a there's a level of pressure there. But and I only did that one project, but still, once I got there, it was like, yeah, I'm not I'm not afraid of this anymore. I know I can do this, and I know that I have the knowledge, which is what's important. You have to be able to fix the problem. They don't care about anything else.

SPEAKER_00

Or they shouldn't. Started my tech business back in the 90s, Cat. I was working way too much. 14, 16 hour days, you're no stranger. Putting my health in the backseat and developing poor diet habs. You know, so I'm in front of the doctor. She tells me I'm at 340 pounds. So I gained all this. I didn't realize I was that.

SPEAKER_01

I did not know that about you. That's awesome. Good for you, man.

SPEAKER_00

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SPEAKER_01

Oh God, that's such a good question. And honestly, power to you, man, that's awesome. I uh have done the same thing. I was 360 pounds at my heaviest.

SPEAKER_02

Whoa.

SPEAKER_01

Um my AS, my ankylistic spondylitis went undiagnosed until I was 36.

SPEAKER_02

Wow.

SPEAKER_01

By the time I was at that point, I was 360 pounds.

SPEAKER_02

Wow.

SPEAKER_01

When I figured out what I had, I was able to actually fight it. You know, when you can name what you have, you can fight it. Right. You can't name it. You're living in hell. Yes. You're going from doctor to doctor, they can't figure out what you have. Um and then once I was able to do that, I I put myself on a regimen to be able to, you know, walk and get up and be more active, but it was more diet choices and try a mix of things and getting on the right meds. Honestly, that's what did it. Um it's it's showing up. It's just for me, it's showing up even when you're in pain, like today. You know, I drove here and I'm in pain and I'm still here doing this. That's that's success in my definition, and uh sometimes that's all it can be, but but you just do, you just push through.

SPEAKER_00

What motivates you?

SPEAKER_01

Um my family, I think, is probably the biggest motivation, which is probably why my company's mission-driven to protect them. But um also my company now. I think you know, I feel like that's gonna be my legacy. Um and my legacy is gonna be the number of families that we can protect.

SPEAKER_00

Hmm. Your own family or legacy. You just said that's how you define success, but if you were to define success based on those motivators of legacy, helping others impact.

SPEAKER_01

Find your truth, find find what gives you joy to wake up the next day and get to work. I worked too many jobs in the past where I was miserable.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

Um, not willing to do it anymore, you know. Um although I I say that we in cybersecurity have the luxury to be able to say that because there are so many jobs. Right. Um so a lot of people don't, and you get stuck. And that's, you know, that happens. And so you have to find joy in little things. And I did that for a long time, that little joy in the little things. But now it was really finding something that drove me and gave me passion, made me happy. Um, and tech's always been that. It's always been that thing I wanted to learn more. Um, and I like solving problems.

SPEAKER_00

So solving problems is something, isn't it? Once you create a solution like that.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. There's a power in that.

SPEAKER_00

There is a power in that. Is there anything in the last month or so you changed your mind on?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, there's always things I change my mind. I mean, you have to adapt or you die, man. Like, and the tech we adapt so fast, especially on the cybersecurity side. If you don't adapt and you don't change things, then you're gonna become stagnant and then you're a thing of the past five minutes ago, you know?

SPEAKER_00

Like, yeah, very true. Yeah. Absolute delight talking to you today, Kat. Anybody watching or listening, how can they get in touch with you?

SPEAKER_01

Uh, ZoraSafe.com is our website.

SPEAKER_00

Zora Safe. Z-O-R-A-Safe.

SPEAKER_01

Yep, that's it. Um, and uh LinkedIn. I'm always on LinkedIn, so Kat K-A-R-O-W.

SPEAKER_00

Kat Carroll, K-A-R-O-W, like we said. Thank you so much. Thank you, Joey. I appreciate it. It's a great pleasure.

SPEAKER_01

It was nice to meeting you.

SPEAKER_00

Thank you for listening and/or viewing Joey Pins Discipline Conversations. Please share this episode with one or two of your friends who you think may benefit from the episode. Our website, www.joeypins.com. There you find lots of resources and you can join our mailing list. Please follow us on all our social media, Instagram, Twitter.