NEW YORK–A reporter for Vice.com said he was able to fool the voice authentication system designed to provide security on his bank account by using an AI-generated voice.
Reporter Joseph Cox said he phoned his bank’s automated service line, with the bank first asking him to say in his own words why he was calling.
“Rather than speak out loud, I clicked a file on my nearby laptop to play a sound clip: ‘Check my balance,’ my voice said,” Cox reported. “But this wasn't actually my voice. It was a synthetic clone I had made using readily available artificial intelligence technology.”
The bank system replied by saying “OK,” and then asked for him to enter or say his date of birth, which he typed in, with the bank system replying, “Please say, ‘My voice is my password.’”
Cox said he then played a sound file from his computer that said, “My voice is my password.” The bank's security system spent a few seconds authenticating the voice and then said, “thank you,” he said.
‘I Was In’
“I was in,” Cox reported. “I couldn’t believe it—it had worked. I had used an AI-powered replica of a voice to break into a bank account. After that, I had access to the account information, including balances and a list of recent transactions and transfers.”
Cox noted that banks across the U.S. and Europe use this sort of voice verification to let customers log into their account over the phone.
‘Shatters the Idea’
“Some banks tout voice identification as equivalent to a fingerprint, a secure and convenient way for users to interact with their bank,” Cox wrote. “But this experiment shatters the idea that voice-based biometric security provides foolproof protection in a world where anyone can now generate synthetic voices for cheap or sometimes at no cost. I used a free voice creation service from ElevenLabs, an AI-voice company.”
For additional details, the full report can be found here.
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