OpenAI’s official press account on X appears to have been compromised by cryptocurrency scammers who have been targeting the company’s executives for the past several months.
Late Monday afternoon, the OpenAI Newsroom, an account created by OpenAI to highlight recent product and policy announcements, posted about a new OpenAI-branded blockchain token, “$OPENAI.”
“We are excited to announce $OPEANAI (sic): Bridging the Gap between AI and Blockchain Technology,” the post reads. “All OpenAI users are eligible to claim the initial supply of $OPENAI. Holding $OPENAI grants access to all future beta programs.”
Of course, $OPENAI does not exist, and X’s post led to a phishing site designed to mimic the legitimate OpenAI website (minus the glaringly misleading URL “token-openai.com”). The fake site featured a prominent “CLAIM $OPENAI” button that encouraged unsuspecting users to connect their cryptocurrency wallets, presumably in an attempt to steal their login credentials.
At the time of publication, the post and site were still live, as was the reply promising “more information” about the repost and tokens would be provided “later this week.” Comments on the malicious X post were disabled, making the hack less noticeable than it might otherwise have been.
We’ve reached out to OpenAI and X for comment and will update this article when we hear back.
This isn’t the first time that accounts associated with OpenAI have been compromised as part of a phishing campaign.
In June 2023, OpenAI CTO Mira Murati’s account posted similar messages promoting a fictitious $OPENAI crypto token. And just three months ago, the accounts of OpenAI Chief Scientist Jakub Pachoki and OpenAI Researcher Jason Wei were hacked and used to post the same scam post as today’s OpenAI Newsroom account.
Coinspeaker reported on Murati’s account hack in June last year, saying the scammers used a “crypto drainer” tool to drain all NFTs and tokens from victims’ wallets into the scammers’ wallets when they logged into the fake OpenAI site.
Other high-profile X accounts owned by tech companies and celebrities have been hacked in recent years to facilitate cryptocurrency scams. Perhaps the most notorious example came in 2020, when hackers targeted the accounts of Apple, Elon Musk, and Joe Biden, publishing Bitcoin wallet addresses and claiming that any money sent to those addresses would be doubled and sent back to them.
According to the FBI, Americans will lose $5.6 billion to cryptocurrency scams in 2023, a 45% increase from 2022. 2024 is expected to be even worse. According to the FTC, more than 50,000 scams were reported in the first half of this year, costing consumers nearly $2.5 billion.
