OpenAI had one of its official Twitter accounts compromised to promote a fake cryptocurrency, the fourth time the Chat GPT developer has fallen foul of similar schemes.
The account urged followers to claim a non-existent token known as $OPENAI, which it said would “bridge the gap” between blockchain technology and AI.
“All OpenAI users are eligible to claim a piece of $OPENAI’s initial supply,” read the tweet.
The now-deleted post said that claiming the tokens would grant buyers “access to all our future beta programs.”
Comments on the fake posts were disabled, perhaps an intentional ploy by the hackers to make the thread look less suspicious.
OpenAI Newsroom, which only launched at the start of this month, had 54,000 followers and focused on topics like company product updates.
The tweet linked to a malicious phishing website, designed to look like OpenAI’s official homepage.
OpenAI’s CTO Mira Murati had his account compromised in June 2023, while the company’s chief scientist Jakub Pachocki suffered a similar incident in June 2024.
OpenAI researcher Jason Wei’s X also had his account hacked in September 2024. In all cases, hackers posted similar messages promoting $OPENAI crypto tokens.
Despite the company’s apparent popularity with crypto scammers, OpenAI has not publicly announced any crypto or blockchain-related projects at the time of writing.
Unlike in the case of many high-profile Twitter hacks, those responsible didn’t try to prompt a particular coin or airdrop to pump its value
In the previous OpenAI Twitter attacks it appears the attackers employed what is known as a “wallet drainer.”
This is where unsuspecting users are tricked into inputting their wallet details, which are then drained of valuables like crypto or non-fungible tokens (NFTs).
Very few firms, no matter their size or their technical expertise, seem to be immune from having their Twitter pages taken hostage to promote coins.
Last week Brazilian soccer star Neymar Jr, computer manufacturer Lenovo, and Oscar winning film director Oliver Stone all had their accounts hacked to promote Solana-based memecoin dubbed $HACKED
In 2020, Bitcoin scammers compromised the pages of President Barack Obama, Apple, Uber, and rapper Kanye West in what may have been the largest scam of its type at the time.
Decrypt has contacted OpenAI for comment. The firm has not yet commented on the breach at the time of writing.
Edited by Stacy Elliott.
