OpenAI News Account Was Hacked To Shill Scam Token

Key Points:

• OpenAI news account was hacked, promoting a fake crypto token, “$OPENAI,” with phishing links targeting users’ cryptocurrency wallets.
• The breach follows a series of similar incidents involving OpenAI employees, including Chief Scientist Jakub Pachocki and CTO Mira Murati, whose X accounts were also compromised.

On Monday, the tech company said that an OpenAI news account on X had been hacked, and was being utilized by a bad actor of unknown identity to post messages encouraging people to invest in a scam cryptocurrency token.

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OpenAI News Account Hacked to Promote Fake Crypto Token

Posts from the hacked OpenAI news account @OpenAINewsroom falsely claimed the release of a blockchain token named “$OPENAI,” leading many people to believe the token belonged to the AI company.

Shortly after, the company came out to say that such a breach had indeed occurred and that investigations were already underway. The fake posts cropped up at around 7 pm ET, staying up for about an hour before they were pulled down. The scam promised a share of the non-existent token to OpenAI users supposedly for early access beta versions.

According to Bloomberg, red flags were everywhere in Monday’s fraud posting when it misspelt OpenAI as “$OPEANAI” and supplied a link to a phishing site that was designed to look like the company’s site.

The post asked users to click on a “CLAIM $OPENAI” button to attempt to trick them into linking their cryptocurrency wallets to the phishing site. It lacked any comment section that might have helped users spot the scam.

Cryptocurrency Scams Becoming More Prevalent

The OpenAI news account hack is the latest in a string of such incidents to target accounts related to OpenAI. Some months ago, some renowned employees at OpenAI, including Chief Scientist Jakub Pachocki and researcher Jason Wei, also saw the takeover of their X accounts into broadcasting crypto scams. This June, OpenAI’s Chief Technology Officer Mira Murati similarly had her account briefly taken over.

These scams are intended to harvest user credentials for break-ins into accounts holding cryptocurrency, with the eventual loss of money. On the same day, OpenAI reportedly issued an internal memo to the staff regarding the uptick in account takeovers, besides giving guidelines on how to keep the accounts secure.

The cryptocurrency scam continues to go up in record numbers worldwide. According to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Americans lost about $5.6 billion in 2023 due to these scams, and their number is expected to increase in 2024.