OpenAI CTO’s Twitter Account used in Phishing Attack to Promote Scam Crypto Token

On 1 June some attackers compromised OpenAI CTO’s Twitter account and promoted a fake cryptocurrency called OPENAI token.

There were 83 retweets of the post and over 800,000 views.

MetaMask, Robinhood and Sandbox are examples of top crypto projects that recently experienced phishing attacks.

Keywords: Crypto phishing, scam crypto, phishing attacks, crypto scammers, OpenAi, AI platform, attack emails, crypto airdrop

Introduction

Some technological innovations that bring many benefits may also give rise to new forms of criminal activities that affect the crypto industry. In some cases, criminals capitalize on social media accounts of renowned individuals to commit crimes.

Recently, bad actors have been hacking social media accounts of prominent business people and passing information that deceive many innocent people. In this piece, we discuss how some malicious actors hacked OpenAi’s CTO Mira Murati’s Twitter account to promote a crypto scam.

Mira Murati’s Twitter account hacked and used in phishing attack

On 1 June, some scammers hacked a Twitter account of OpenAI CTO Mira Murati to promote a scam crypto purportedly called OPENAI token. The fraudsters claimed that OpenAi, the company behind ChatGPT - the popular AI tool- was giving away its token through a crypto airdrop.

Mira Murati, OpenAI CTO - Invibrantcompany

The attackers provided a phishing attack LINK for the purported airdrop which remained on the Twitter account for an hour. Notably, there is a token called OpenAI ERC that belongs to a free-to-use telegram bot that enables its users to access DALL-E and ChapGPT through chat commands.

Within a short time of posting it, the tweet got much traction with 83 retweets and over 800,000 views. Nevertheless, people could not comment on the tweet since no one was allowed to do so. The scammers should have restricted the account to stop community members from ing others about their evil intentions.

Read also: Avoiding Crypto Scams: 5 Red Flags to Watch Out For

Beosin, a specialist at a Blockchain security firm, told Cointelegraph that the scammers should have used a crypto wallet-draining kit that could drain digital assets like NFTs and ERC20 tokens from any wallet that would connect to it through the provided link. Nevertheless, by the time of writing there has been no confirmation that any person became a victim to the scam. In addition, there is no definite information as to how the hack took place. However, some analysts believe that Murati would have been a victim of a sim-swapping attack.

Read also: How Not to Fall For NFT Scams

Why would the crypto scammers target Mira Murati?

The scammers wanted people to believe that the purported airdrop was genuine since it was advertised using OpenAi’s CTO Twitter account. Secondly, Murai had a large following of more than 126,000 members which increased the chance for people to fall prey to the bait.

How the scammers tried to trick the unsuspecting crypto lovers?

The scammers used different means to convince the Twitter users that OpenAi was offering a real airdrop. To entice people to claim it, they described the cryptocurrency as an AI token, a category of one of the most trending cryptocurrencies. The post read, “A groundbreaking token driven by artificial intelligence-based language models.”

Right away, anything to do with artificial intelligence is appealing to many people including investors. It is not surprising, therefore, that the scammers tried to cheat the people in that way.

In addition, the website which the scammers directed the Twitter users to looked almost the same as OpenAI’s to the extent that it would have been very difficult for someone to tell the difference. The main difference was the feature to connect crypto wallets.

The rise of artificial intelligence in scamming activities

There has been an increase in incidents of phishing scams on different social media platforms including Facebook and Twitter. To that effect, security experts have been warning internet users of the danger of scams as a result of AI platforms like ChatGPT which can generate sophisticated attack emails.

Recently, the California Department of Financial Protection and Innovation (DFPI) warned people that AI investment scams that claim to generate quick and easy money for the investors are on the rise. Some of the scammers tell people that they have AI trading bots that can trade on their behalf.

In this context, Jeff Greene, a director for cybersecurity at Aspen Digital, said that due to AI the phishing emails will become tailored to the requirements of individuals and will have better language in terms of grammar and readability.

Recent phishing attacks

The number of phishing attacks has been increasing remarkably since the beginning of this year. One of the notable scam attacks was against Robinhood. In January some bad actors used Robinhood’s social media platforms to advertise a scam crypto.

Also, the digital wallet of the Moonbirds NFT collection creators was hacked using phishing attacks. Further to this, hackers breached a computer for a Sandbox employee and sent phishing emails to Sandbox metaverse users. Unfortunately, MetaMask was another victim of similar malicious attacks. A malicious actor compromised its server and sent emails to the users requesting their KYC details.

These above examples of phishing attacks show how serious the problem is. Sadly, it will become more serious as many scammers start to use AI to attack their targets.

Conclusion

Bad actors compromised the Twitter account of OpenAI’s CTO, Mira Murati and promoted a scam crypto. However, there has not been confirmation that anyone lost his/her valuable digital assets. Earlier this year, several crypto projects like Sandbox, Robinhood and MetaMask were subjects of malicious attacks.

What is a phishing attack?

A phishing attack is a type of a crypto scam where bad actors trick the victims to give them their personal information such as private keys or seed phrases. The attackers pretend to be very honest and reliable individuals. However, their main motive is to steal the victims’ digital assets like NFTs and cryptocurrencies.

How to keep crypto assets safe?

Crypto investors can keep their cryptocurrencies safely on established and secure exchanges such as Gate.io. Also, Gate.io has insurance for the digital assets as well as proof of reserves.