OpenAI’s official press account on X was compromised by cryptocurrency scammers. Or, at the very least that’s what seems to have occurred.

Late Monday afternoon, OpenAI Newsroom, an account OpenAI lately launched to highlight product- and policy-related bulletins, posted a few supposedly new blockchain token, “$OPENAI.”

“[$OPEANAI bridges] the hole between Al and blockchain expertise,” the put up learn. “All OpenAI customers are eligible to say a bit of $OPENAI’s preliminary provide. Holding $OPENAI will grant entry to all of our future beta packages.”

The difficulty is, $OPENAI doesn’t exist — and the put up on X linked to a phishing website designed to imitate the reliable OpenAI web site (minus the conspicuous URL “token-openai.com”). A distinguished “CLAIM $OPENAI” button on the faux website inspired unsuspecting customers to attach their cryptocurrency wallets, possible in an try to steal these customers’ login credentials.

As of publication time, each the put up and website have been nonetheless up. And feedback on the malicious OpenAI Newsroom put up have been disabled, making the rip-off much less apparent than it may be in any other case.

It’s not the primary time accounts related to OpenAI have been compromised as part of phishing campaigns.

In June 2023, OpenAI CTO Mira Murati’s account posted the same message selling the fictional $OPENAI token. And simply three months in the past, the accounts of OpenAI chief scientist Jakub Pachocki and OpenAI researcher Jason Wei have been compromised and used to publish rip-off posts practically equivalent to the put up on the OpenAI Newsroom account Monday.