If the tech world has its version of the four horsemen of the apocalypse, then crypto and AI would be two of them. So, what should happen if they were to meet? According to a new report, the official OpenAI Newsroom X account has been hacked by crypto scammers.
This hack was confirmed on Monday, but OpenAI hasn’t responded to it just yet. There have been other hacks similar to this that happened previously. Notably, the company’s CTO, Mira Murati, had her account hacked last year. It’s pretty clear that the people who hacked her account are behind this most recent hack.
The OpenAI Newsroom account was hacked by crypto scammers
People who follow the OpenAI Newsroom X account were greeted with a pretty off-brand post from the company. “We’re very happy to announce $OPEANAI: the gap between Al and blockchain technology. 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.”
At no point did the company express any interest in entering the crypto market, so this must have been jarring for many users. Unfortunately, the comments for ... were turned off. So, there was no chance for people to call the company out on the fake post.
Unsuspecting people who clicked on the link associated with the tweet would be brought to a pretty convincing-looking phishing website, token-openai.com. This website will ask you to connect your wallet. Obviously, this coin doesn’t exist, so if you see this or any other post with similar text, don’t go to the website. This is a scam that’s designed to defraud you of your money.
We’re still waiting for the company to make some sort of announcement or statement about the situation. TechCrunch reached out to the company for a comment, but it hasn’t responded just yet.
This scam has been in commission since last year. The aforementioned hack that happened with Murati had basically the same text with the same website. Not only that but other OpenAI staff have been hit with the same scam over the past couple of months.