OpenAI’s official press account on X was compromised by cryptocurrency scammers. Or, at least that’s what appears to have happened.
Late Monday afternoon, OpenAI Newsroom, an account OpenAI recently launched to spotlight product- and policy-related announcements, posted about a supposedly new OpenAI-branded blockchain token, “$OPENAI.”
“[$OPEANAI bridges] the gap between Al and blockchain technology,” the post read. “All OpenAI users are eligible to claim a piece of $OPENAI’s initial supply. Holding $OPENAI will grant access to all of our future beta programs.”
The trouble is, $OPENAI doesn’t exist — and the post on X linked to a phishing site designed to mimic the legitimate OpenAI website (minus the conspicuous URL “token-openai.com”). A prominent “CLAIM $OPENAI” button on the fake site encouraged unsuspecting users to connect their cryptocurrency wallets, likely in an attempt to steal those users’ login credentials.
As of publication time, both the post and site were still up. And comments on the malicious OpenAI Newsroom post were disabled, making the scam less obvious than it might be otherwise.
It’s not the first time accounts associated with OpenAI have been compromised as a part of phishing campaigns.
In June 2023, OpenAI CTO Mira Murati’s account posted a similar message promoting the fictional $OPENAI token. And just three months ago, the accounts of OpenAI chief scientist Jakub Pachocki and OpenAI researcher Jason Wei were compromised and used to publish scam posts nearly identical to the post on the OpenAI Newsroom account Monday.
