OpenAI’s official press account on X was hacked by cryptocurrency scammers. Or, at least that’s what appears to have happened.
Late Tuesday afternoon, OpenAI Newsroom, an account OpenAI recently launched to spotlight product- and policy-related announcements, tweeted about an “$OPENAI” cryptocurrency token that “[bridges] the gap between AI and blockchain technology.”
“All OpenAI users are eligible to claim a piece of $OPENAI’s initial supply,” the post read. “Holding $OPENAI will grant access to all of our future beta programs.”
The trouble is, $OPENAI doesn’t exist — and the post linked to a phishing site designed to mimic the legitimate OpenAI website (with the exception of 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.