The State Bank of India has issued a comprehensive warning about AI voice-cloning scams as part of its 'National Cyber Security Month Special Campaign 6.0' on October 16, 2026. According to reports from Mint, SBI explained that scammers are now using artificial intelligence technology to impersonate family members, friends, and officials, tricking unsuspecting victims into transferring money or sharing sensitive banking information. The bank emphasized that complete verification is essential before acting on any urgent requests, as these scams are rapidly evolving due to technological advancements. With the recent launch of Google Gemini, which can now call businesses for customers, these AI-powered scams are becoming increasingly sophisticated and widespread.
As reported by Mint, these sophisticated scams involve fraudsters using artificial intelligence to imitate a person's voice and create urgency by claiming relatives need emergency funds or accounts require immediate verification. The bank provided a practical example in their video tutorial, showing how a fraudster called Sunita claiming to be her brother 'Sonu' and requesting ₹20,000. The video demonstrates how victims are advised to call back the person being impersonated for confirmation before sending any money, highlighting the importance of verification over trust in familiar voices. With the advent of Google Gemini, these scams now have the capability to call customers directly, making them more convincing and potentially more dangerous.
According to the SBI guidance reported by Mint, customers should follow five key safety measures to protect against voice-cloning scams. The bank recommends verifying caller identity by disconnecting calls and calling saved numbers to confirm requests, treating all urgent money transfer requests with caution even from familiar voices, and never sharing confidential details such as OTPs, PINs, passwords, or banking credentials over calls. Additionally, SBI suggests using family verification codes - private words or phrases agreed upon with family members to help verify unusual emergency requests, and reporting suspected fraud immediately to banks and India's cybercrime helpline at 1930. With the growing sophistication of AI-powered scams, these protective measures become even more critical for customers to implement.
The SBI warning comes as the banking sector faces 10 critical cyber risk priorities according to recent industry analysis. Key risks include vulnerabilities and legacy systems, identity and access risks, third-party dependencies, cyber incidents, technology outages, weak recovery capabilities, insecure integrations and emerging AI risks. Banks increasingly depend on cloud providers, fintechs, software vendors and other external technology providers, where failures or compromises at critical providers can affect banking services, data availability and operational resilience. As reported by Mint, SBI emphasized that recognizing a familiar voice is no longer enough to establish complete trust as AI tools become more accessible and easier to use, with the bank warning that acting in panic can lead victims to disclose confidential details or authorize fraudulent transactions.
