Official OpenAI Twitter Account Taken Over by Hackers to Shill Crypto Scheme

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On Monday evening, one of OpenAI's official accounts on X—formerly Twitter—was taken over by crypto scammers, who used the opportunity to promote a fake token called "$OPENAI."

"We're very happy to announce $OPENAI: the token bridging the gap between AI and blockchain technology," read a now-deleted tweet from the OpenAI Newsroom account, which has more than 54,000 followers.

"All OpenAI users are eligible to claim a portion of $OPENAI's initial supply," the post continued. "Holding $OPENAI will grant access to all of our future beta programs."

The message contained a link to a phishing site mimicking OpenAI's official website, according to TechCrunch. Visitors were prompted to click a prominent "CLAIM $OPENAI" button, which opened a wallet-connection interface. As is typical with such schemes, the goal was almost certainly to drain any connected crypto wallets.

Response Lacking

Before proceeding: do not purchase any cryptocurrency claiming a partnership with OpenAI—none exist.

The company confirmed it was aware of the incident and investigating, Bloomberg reported. Beyond that brief acknowledgment, OpenAI has offered no further details. It remains unclear how many users were affected.

Although the fraudulent posts were removed within an hour, the phishing site stayed online—now displaying a "suspected phishing" warning for visitors.

Since the breach, the Newsroom account—created in June and only recently activated—has remained silent, with no follow-up statements or tweets issued.

Poor Defenses

Fortunately, the compromised account was not OpenAI's main profile, which boasts over three million followers. A breach there could have caused significantly greater harm.

Still, this marks the fifth hack of an OpenAI-affiliated account in roughly two years, Cointelegraph notes. The pattern suggests either persistent cybersecurity weaknesses or that the company is an especially attractive target—or both.

Four of the incidents promoted the same fake $OPENAI token. Among the compromised accounts were those belonging to Chief Technology Officer Mira Murati (hacked in June last year) and Chief Scientist Jakub Pachocki (breached just a few months ago).

OpenAI's most significant breach occurred last year, when an intruder accessed a private internal forum used by employees to discuss confidential matters.

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