Cybersecurity is something that concerns all of us, as nations continue to function and systems remain engaged depending on it. The day that the hackers managed to blow things up would be the end. And today’s case should alert us. Or, at least, to banking entities.

Banks in the US and Europe promote voice identification as a secure way to access accounts. And, in an exercise in investigative journalism, a Vice writer set out to prove that these systems could be fooled by free AI-generated voices.

“On Wednesday I called my bank’s auto service. First of all, the bank asked me to state in my own words why I called. Instead of speaking out loud, I clicked on a file on my laptop to play a voice clip: “Check my balance,” said my voice. But that’s not really my voice. It was a synthetic clone he made using artificial intelligence technology.“.

“OKAY“, replied the bank. Then the bank asked him to enter his date of birth as the first validation data. After typing, the bank asked him to: “Please say: my vote is my password“.

Again, the journalist plays the sound file from his computer. “my voice is my passwordsaid the voice. It took a few seconds for the bank’s security system to authenticate the voice… but it did. At that time the foundations of the West shook because technology.

Artificial intelligence and leisure: tools for robbing banks

i can’t believe it, said the reporter:”it worked”. He had used an artificial intelligence-controlled voice replicator to break into bank accounts. And once logged in he can see how he has access to all account information, including balances and a list of recent transactions and transfers.

Banks in the United States and Europe use this type of voice verification so customers can access their accounts by telephone. And some banks promote voice identification as an equivalent security measure fingerprint, a safe and convenient way for users to interact with your bank.

But This experiment disproves the notion that voice-based biometric security offers foolproof protection in a world where anyone can produce synthetic voices for little money. The journalist claims that he used a free voice creation service from ElevenLabs, a company that specializes in AI voices.

However, the misuse of the sound generated by artificial intelligence it can extend to computer fraud and hacking. Hence this experiment was very scary.