Hackers Take Control of Official OpenAI Twitter

Account to Promote Crypto Scheme Once More?

Season Open

Crypto scammers hijacked one of OpenAI’s official accounts on X-formerly-Twitter on Monday night, using the opportunity to promote a fictitious currency named “$OPENAI.”

The OpenAI Newsroom account, which has more than 54,000 followers, tweeted, “We’re very happy to announce $OPEANAI: the token bridging the gap between Al and blockchain technology.” The tweet has since been removed.

“All OpenAI users are eligible to claim a piece of $OPENAI‘s initial supply,” it said. “Holding $OPENAI will grant access to all of our future beta programs.”

According to TechCrunch, the tweet contained a link to a phishing website that mimics OpenAI’s. There, unsuspecting users are instructed to click a large “CLAIM $OPENAI” button, which launches a menu asking them to connect a cryptocurrency wallet. Furthermore, this would almost definitely be utilized to steal whatever money was in the wallet, as these schemes often do.

Absence of Reaction

Before we continue, let us clarify that OpenAI is not associated with any projects that include cryptocurrency purchases.
According to Bloomberg, the business stated that it was aware of the breach and that it was investigating it. This is the most that it has stated about the situation thus far. The number of persons that were duped by the scam.

The fake website remains online, but if you visit it today you’ll see a “suspected phishing” warning page instead of the postings that were removed after an hour.
Created in June and only started to be used regularly this month, the Newsroom account has not released any statements or follow-up tweets since the attack. That fell rather quickly, huh?

Inadequate Defenses

Fortunately, OpenAI’s main account which boasts more than three million followers was not compromised. The harm could have been far worse otherwise.

Still, this is the fifth hack of an OpenAI-affiliated account in about two years, Cointelegraph notes, which either means that the startup has a nagging cybersecurity issue that needs addressing, or that it’s the target of an outsized number of attacks, or both.

Four of these breaches were used to shill the same fake $OPENAI token, including the Twitter accounts of the AI company’s chief technology officer Mira Murati, which was hacked in June last year, and more recently the account of chief scientist Jakub Pachocki just a few months ago.

The company suffered its most major breach last year, when a hacker broke into a private forum used by OpenAI‘s employees to discuss company secrets.