--- title: "Journalist Clones His Voice and Uses It to Break Into His Own Bank Account" description: "Joseph Cox at Vice fed his voice into an Eleven Labs AI voice cloning tool, which he used to successfully bypass voice biometrics over the phone." date: "2023-02-24" modified: "2023-02-24" authors: - name: "Frank Landymore" job_title: "Contributing Writer" link: "https://futurism.com/authors/flandymore" url: "https://futurism.com/the-byte/journalist-clones-voice-break-into-bank" categories: - "Artificial Intelligence" tags: - "biometrics" - "generative ai" - "the digest" - "voice cloning" --- # Journalist Clones His Voice and Uses It to Break Into His Own Bank Account ![Joseph Cox at Vice fed his voice into an Eleven Labs AI voice cloning tool, which he used to successfully bypass voice biometrics over the phone.]() *\Image: Getty / Futurism\* ## Conned by a Clone If you're not already worried about AI voice cloning, you probably should be. Testing the technology's limits, journalist Joseph Cox at *Vice* [broke into his own bank account]() by using an AI-synthesized clone of his voice to prove his identity — highlighting both the technology's dangerous potential as well as the shortcomings of voice biometrics. When Cox called the automated service line of UK-based Lloyds Bank, the robot on the other end asked him to state why he was calling. He directed it to "Check my balance," by using an AI-synthesized sound clip of his voice. The bank then asked for his date of birth, which Cox punched in, before asking him to say aloud "my voice is my password." "My voice is my password," Cox's voice clone stated. "Thank you," the bank replied. And there you go: a human-directed AI voice clone conned its way into a bank account, gaining its wielder access to the account's balances and recent transactions. "I couldn't believe it — it had worked," Cox wrote. https://twitter.com/josephfcox/status/1628798416754032643 ## Catch Em If You Can Thankfully the wielder happened to be the owner this time, but there's no guarantee that malicious hackers in the future won't be able to pull off the same con on unsuspecting individuals. Cox used a cheap and popular AI voice cloning tool from ElevenLabs, which you may have already seen deployed in [viral memes of a fake Joe Biden voice]() and the [gutters of 4chan](). To produce a convincing copy, all a user of the tool has to do is upload samples of whatever voice they want to clone, and type in what they want the clone to say — no technical expertise required. Cox says he used other AI tools to try to pull off the bank job, but none other than ElevenLabs were able to bypass authentication. Voice biometrics is used at a number of banks, including Chase, Wells Fargo, and TD Bank to verify account holders calling in over the phone. Lloyds Bank, where Cox's clone faked its way into, [claims that]() its "safe" Voice ID security feature analyzes over "100 different characteristics of your voice, which like your fingerprint, are unique to you." Right now, voice cloning fraud isn't exactly taking the world by storm since it isn't always practical for a hacker to obtain your voice — unless you're famous — but it's probably best not to rely on it as your sole line of defense. And while your voice may be unique to you, it's clearly not unique to an AI — in the eyes of biometrics, anyway. **More on AI:** *[Voice Actors Enraged By Companies Stealing Their Voices With AI]()* ## Author At Futurism, my work has often centered on bringing a sense of clarity and insight to complex topics ranging from the regulation of emerging technologies to the esoteric ideologies of Silicon Valley executives, while striving not to lose the poetic sense of awe inspired by often-obscure fields like astrophysics and quantum computing. I broke the story of CNET using AI to produce articles that turned out to be riddled with factual errors and plagiarism — a dam-breaking inflection point, as I've reported, that's inspired copycats and endless discourse while beguiling stakeholders ranging from tech giants to purveyors of spam around the web. My work at Futurism has been cited by publications including CBS News, the Los Angeles Times, Vice, Gizmodo, Engadget, the Verge, and Vanity Fair. I grew up in locales ranging from India to China, and now live in the exotic suburbs of Virginia. In my free time, I'm an avid reader of weird sci-fi literature, an aficionado of East Asian cinema, and, regrettably, a relapsed gamer. Allegedly, I’m working on a debut novel, currently untitled. ### Author social links [Bluesky]()