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Graham Cluley
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Graham Cluley

Things Graham Says on Podcasts

Cybersecurity researcher and writer working in the industry since the early 1990s, when he wrote the first Windows version of Dr Solomon's Anti-Virus Toolkit. Inducted into the InfoSecurity Europe Hall of Fame in 2011, and works with companies and law enforcement on hacking investigations alongside regular TV and radio appearances. Hosts Smashing Security, a weekly cybercrime and privacy podcast with Carole Theriault running since 2016 with over ten million downloads, and has appeared as a guest on Malicious Life and Hacking Humans.

Where to Find Them

Graham Cluley hosts and writes Smashing Security . They have also been a guest on Malicious Life (2 times) and Hacking Humans .

Recently: “How AI agents are spooking the banks” on Smashing Security (November 2026); “How Jared Kushner's iPhone was allegedly hacked twice” on Smashing Security (October 2026); “How a brand new crypto wallet came with a spy inside” on Smashing Security (October 2026); “How a ransomware negotiator ended up arrested at his own conference” on Smashing Security (October 2026); “Clippy's crypto comeback” on Smashing Security (October 2026); “Vibe-coded shops, and hackable Flock cameras” on Smashing Security (September 2026).

What They Said

“There hasn't been any verified loss of money so far. But you have to think, how would they possibly know? Because the agent is logging in with the user's credentials. Unless users are actually reporting it to the banks and saying, yes, I've been a bloody idiot and I let my AI loose on my bank account, I don't think the bank necessarily will know.” — Graham Cluley, Smashing Security

His guest asked whether AI agents accessing bank accounts has caused any actual harm yet, or whether the risk is still theoretical. Cluley explains why the absence of reported losses may not mean much.

Smashing Security · 2026-11-05 Permalink → Listen →
Smashing Security Around 16:25 into the episode
Graham Cluley

…emails on your behalf. It's going to buy things for you. It's going to book travel for you. And it says it will work in the background even when you close the app, which to me doesn't sound like a feature, sounds more like a threat, to be honest. It's that you can't turn this ruddy thing off. Do

Renee Dudley

you know anybody who's tried it?

Graham Cluley

No. No, do I even know anyone who's on Facebook anymore? I'm not sure I do. Now, apparently, although you can use it to make purchases, it uses StripeLink. So it's generating virtual cards for transactions. And I imagine there's a bit of guardrails involved there, isn't there? There's an extra little bit of protection. It has this safety layer called Sentinel built into it. Now, if any listeners are fans of the X-Men, you'll know that the Sentinels were genocidal robots. And in the Matrix, Sentinels are those squid-like things which went around hunting the humans. So great choice by Facebook's marketing department to call their safety level Sentinel. I'm sure they've thought carefully about that. Anyway, the thing is, there are lots of AI agents out there. It's not just Muse, but there are browser-based agents. There's open source automation tools. There's agentic wrappers, all kinds of software, which promises to automate your digital life if you will just give it access to your accounts. And of course, that's where things can go terribly, terribly wrong. So people are typing their actual banking credentials into AI assistance.…

Renee Dudley

geez, I don't know, but are you aware of any actual harm that has come to pass from this so far? Or is the risk mostly in the realm of theoretical right now?

Graham Cluley

So there hasn't been any verified loss of money regarding this so far. But you have to think to yourself, how would they possibly know? Because it is logging in with the user's credentials. Unless users are actually reporting it to the banks and saying, yes, I've been a bloody idiot and I let my AI…

Renee Dudley

And then so you foresee something like some bad actor. Getting into those companies and then getting a hold of this information, then selling it to the highest bidder in the black market or something like that.

Speaker names come from our own diarization. The position is estimated from where the line sits in the episode.
“The liability is yours, I'm afraid, Mr. Banking Customer. If your robot does something stupid with your money, it's not the bank's fault. You are going to have to sort it out between you and your robot.” — Graham Cluley, Smashing Security

Cluley was describing a Bank of America email telling customers not to give their banking credentials to AI assistants, and warning that they are responsible for any activity resulting from that access. His guest had just said it sounded like a way to shift liability onto the customer.

Smashing Security · 2026-11-05 Permalink → Listen →
Smashing Security Around 13:41 into the episode
Graham Cluley

…we need to tell people this. Clearly, they felt people weren't listening. And they said, if you do share your credentials, this is how they were going to reinforce the message. If you do share your credentials, keep in mind that you are responsible for any activity resulting from that access.

Renee Dudley

Sounds like a way to shift liability to the customer.

Graham Cluley

Absolutely. The liability is yours, I'm afraid, Mr. Banking Customer. If your robot does something stupid with your money, it's not the bank's fault. You are going to have to sort it out between you and your robot. So you go and have a chat with your robot as to how you're going to fix that particular problem. Now, I probably don't need to ask this question, Renee, but have you ever given your banking password to an AI?

Renee Dudley

No, I'm a big fan of the New York Times podcast, The Daily.

Graham Cluley

Yes.

Renee Dudley

And there was recently an episode called Call My AI Agent with Eli Tan, I believe. And he described how he used Meta's Muse and turned over all of these extremely personal details. It seemed like, including the kind of information that BOA was warning its customers about. And the reporter expressed…

Speaker names come from our own diarization. The position is estimated from where the line sits in the episode.

Collections They Appear In

Software Engineering & Infra