Crypto hackers have compromised OpenAI 's official press account on X.
The OpenAI Newsroom account, which was recently created to announce product and policy updates, uploaded a post about a purported new blockchain token, “$OPENAI“.
“We are excited to announce $OPENAI: the connection between AI and blockchain technology,” the post said. “All OpenAI users can claim a share of the initial $OPENAI supply. Owning $OPENAI will give you access to all of our future beta.”
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Of course, $OPENAI doesn’t exist, and the post on X leads to a phishing site that attempts to mimic OpenAI’s legitimate website (minus the blatantly incorrect “token-openai.com” URL). A prominent “CLAIM $OPENAI” button on the fake site encourages unsuspecting users to connect their cryptocurrency wallets, presumably with the intent of stealing credentials .
As of press time, both the post and the website remained live, along with a repost and a response promising “more information” about the token to come later in the week. Comments on the malicious X post have been disabled, making the breach less obvious than it would otherwise have been.
We've reached out to OpenAI and X for comment and will update this article as soon as we hear back. Unfortunately, this isn't the first time that accounts associated with OpenAI have fallen victim to phishing.
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In June 2023, the account of OpenAI CTO Mira Murati posted a similar message promoting the fictitious cryptocurrency $OPENAI. Additionally, three months ago, the accounts of OpenAI chief scientist Jakub Pachocki and researcher Jason Wei were hacked and used to post a hoax that was identical to the current post on the OpenAI Newsroom account.
According to Coinspeaker, which reported on the hack of Murati's account last June, the scammers used a "crypto drainer" tool that transferred all of the NFTs and tokens the victims had in their wallets to the hackers' wallet as soon as they logged into the fake OpenAI website.
Recently, other high-profile X accounts belonging to tech companies and celebrities have also been hacked to promote cryptocurrency scams. One of the most notorious examples occurred in 2020, when hackers targeted accounts belonging to figures such as Apple, Elon Musk , and Joe Biden in order to post a bitcoin wallet address with the claim that the amount deposited would be doubled and refunded.
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According to the FBI, Americans lost $5.6 billion to cryptocurrency scams in 2023, a 45% increase over 2022. 2024 looks set to be just as bad or worse. Over 50,000 scams have been reported in the first half of this year, costing consumers nearly $2.5 billion, according to the FTC.
Source: techcrunch
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