Scam Token ‘OPENAI’ Promoted On OpenAI CTO’s Twitter Account

The Twitter account belonging to OpenAI CTO Mira Murati was hacked on Thursday, and used to promote a scam crypto token supposedly backed by the company. 

The tweet stayed online for roughly an hour, garnering 80,000 views from platform users before being taken down. 

Another Scam AI Token

The hacker promoted a fraudulent airdrop for ‘OPENAI’ token, described as a “groundbreaking token driven by artificial intelligence-based language models.”

Mira Murati’s (CTO at @OpenAI) account has been hacked and is being used to promote crypto scams. The tweet is gaining 1k+ impressions per minute. pic.twitter.com/VekeRV1xDT

— Max Rdlb (@maxrdlb) June 2, 2023

The tweet provided a link to a well-edited phishing website that appeared like a direct copy of an actual project called ChainGPT – an AI chatbot for crypto and blockchain information. 

The copied version, however, included some minor tweaks – such as a prompt for visitors to connect their crypto wallet. Reports suggest that the site lured investors into transaction signing requests, with which the hacker could transfer NFTs and ERC-20 tokens from the victim’s wallet. 

The fake tweet from Murati’s account used restricted replies, making it more difficult for followers to warn readers that the post was fraudulent. Though it’s now removed, Murati has not released any clarifying statement from her account. 

According to Scam Sniffer, the hack was perpetrated by a repeat offender in the art of phishing scams named “Pink Drainer.” Netting $110,000 from this particular hack, the scammer has already drained $1.8 million from over 500 victims since May 30.

Twitter-Based Crypto Scams

Crypto Twitter is notorious for phishing scams perpetrated using spam bots, which frequently clog reply sections for notable industry influencers. Elon Musk promised to remedy the issue partially through Twitter’s new verification program.

Many such scams work by impersonating high-profile personalities. One of the most famous scams occurred in July 2020, when over 130 prominent accounts including Elon Musk, Joe Biden, Barrack Obama, and others were hacked, inviting users to send BTC to a certain address, and promising a 2:1 return. 

Social media scams of the like have worked before: A fake Michael Saylor phishing scam netted the perpetrator over $1.1 million from a victim in January 2022, on-chain data showed. 

“We report them every 15 minutes and they are taken down after a few hours, but the scammers just launch more,” said Saylor at the time.