--- title: "Official OpenAI Twitter Account Taken Over by Hackers to Shill Crypto Scheme" description: "The official OpenAI Newsroom account on X, formerly Twitter, was hacked by someone to promote a fake token as part of a phishing attack." date: "2024-09-24" modified: "2024-09-24" authors: - name: "Frank Landymore" job_title: "Contributing Writer" link: "https://futurism.com/authors/flandymore" url: "https://futurism.com/the-byte/openai-twitter-hack-crypto" categories: - "Artificial Intelligence" - "OpenAI" tags: - "crypto" - "cryptocurrencies" - "OpenAI" - "the digest" --- # Official OpenAI Twitter Account Taken Over by Hackers to Shill Crypto Scheme ![The official OpenAI Newsroom account on X, formerly Twitter, was hacked by someone to promote a fake token as part of a phishing attack.]() *\Image: Getty / Futurism\* ## Open Season On Monday evening, one of OpenAI's official accounts on X-formerly-Twitter was taken over by crypto scammers, who used the opportunity to peddle a fake token called "$OPENAI." "We're very happy to announce $OPEANAI: the token bridging the gap between Al and blockchain technology," said a now-deleted tweet on the OpenAI Newsroom account, which has over 54,000 followers. "All OpenAI users are eligible to claim a piece of $OPENAI's initial supply," it continued. "Holding $OPENAI will grant access to all of our future beta programs." The post included a link to a phishing site designed to look like OpenAI's, [according to *TechCrunch*](), where unwitting users are directed to click a big "CLAIM $OPENAI" button that opens a menu to connect a crypto wallet. And as these scams tend to go, this would almost certainly be used to plunder whatever funds the wallet contained. ## Response Lacking Before we proceed: *do not* buy any crypto purported to be a collaboration with OpenAI, because it's not involved with any such projects. The company acknowledged it was aware of the breach and that it was looking into it, [according to *Bloomberg*](), which is about the extent of what it's said on the matter so far. It's unclear how many people were tricked by the scam. While the posts were deleted after an hour, the bogus website is still up — though it's now been flagged with a "suspected phishing" warning page if you visit it. Since the hack, no statements or follow-up tweets have been made on the Newsroom account, which was created in June and only became actively used this month. Didn't take long for it to fall, huh? ## Poor Defenses Luckily, it wasn't OpenAI's primary account, which has over three million followers, that was compromised. Otherwise, the damage could've been much worse. 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. **More on OpenAI:** [*Sam Altman Invents Bizarre New Unit of Time for Measuring When His Promises Will Come True*]() ## Author At Futurism, my work has often centered on bringing a sense of clarity and insight to complex topics ranging from the regulation of emerging technologies to the esoteric ideologies of Silicon Valley executives, while striving not to lose the poetic sense of awe inspired by often-obscure fields like astrophysics and quantum computing. I broke the story of CNET using AI to produce articles that turned out to be riddled with factual errors and plagiarism — a dam-breaking inflection point, as I've reported, that's inspired copycats and endless discourse while beguiling stakeholders ranging from tech giants to purveyors of spam around the web. My work at Futurism has been cited by publications including CBS News, the Los Angeles Times, Vice, Gizmodo, Engadget, the Verge, and Vanity Fair. I grew up in locales ranging from India to China, and now live in the exotic suburbs of Virginia. In my free time, I'm an avid reader of weird sci-fi literature, an aficionado of East Asian cinema, and, regrettably, a relapsed gamer. Allegedly, I’m working on a debut novel, currently untitled. ### Author social links [Bluesky]()