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On Monday evening, cryptocurrency scammers targeted OpenAI’s official X account.
The hackers compromised @OpenAINewsroom, an account with nearly 54,000 followers. Once in control, the cybercriminals wasted no time promoting their fake cryptocurrency token, ironically named $OPENAI, to lend further legitimacy to their con.
OpenAI Newsroom Account Hacked to Peddle Phony Crypto Scam
At around 6:24 PM ET, the OpenAINewsroom account shared a post announcing the launch of a supposed $OPENAI token. The message falsely claimed that the token would bridge the gap between AI and blockchain technology, encouraging users to connect their wallets to claim the token.
The scam falsely claimed that owning the token would grant priority access to future beta programs from OpenAI.
The final stage of the scam involved convincing unsuspecting followers to claim the non-existent digital asset by connecting their cryptocurrency wallets to a deceptive website, a move that would have granted the scammers access to the victim’s funds.
This @openai researcher got hacked. The classic "a coin just dropped" thing with comments turned off and a fake website. An analysis on how the attack works and its tech stack 🧵 pic.twitter.com/spx9G30hns
— Guillermo Rauch (@rauchg) September 22, 2024
The post was quickly deleted, but the breach shows a growing trend of brands and individual accounts falling prey to bad actors who use their platforms to amplify fraudulent cryptocurrency projects.
OpenAI has not yet released an official statement about the incident. At press time, there has been no follow-up post from the OpenAI Newsroom account explaining the breach or providing any details on how it happened.
The hack of OpenAI’s account is not an isolated incident. In recent years, social media platforms have seen a rise in official accounts being hacked to promote cryptocurrency scams.
In August, McDonald’s Instagram account was compromised to promote a Solana-based meme coin scam called Grimace. The hackers leveraged the company’s over 5 million Instagram followers to promote the rug pull scam that resulted in a loss of over $700,000 for unsuspecting users.
The X accounts of crypto celebrities were also hacked in May to promote meme coins. Some of the victims were Gigantic-Cassocked-Rebirth (GCR), a pseudonymous crypto investor whose X account was used to promote ORDI and Luna 2.0. The X accounts of Caitlyn Jenner and Rich the Kid were breached at that time for the same purpose of promoting meme coins.
In addition, Tesla CEO Elon Musk has been targeted in crypto scams. Recall that during SpaceX’s live stream of the solar eclipse on YouTube in April, there were deepfakes of Musk asking users to scan a QR code and deposit cryptocurrencies to double them.
While some of the hacks are quickly detected and rectified, the posts often remain online long enough for unsuspecting users to fall victim to the scams.
