OpenAI’s official press account on X (formerly Twitter) was hacked by cryptocurrency scammers. On Monday, the hijacked account, identified as OpenAI Newsroom, posted about a counterfeit digital asset known as “$OPENAI.” This incident serves as a stark reminder of the vulnerability of even well-established accounts to cyber threats.

The post declared, “We’re thrilled to introduce $OPEANAI: bridging the gap between AI and blockchain technology.” It continued to state that all OpenAI members had the opportunity to own a portion of the $OPEANAI token, which was allegedly a gateway to upcoming beta programs. However, the token was not real, and the link provided led to a fraudulent website that looked like OpenAI’s real one but had the wrong URL “token-openai.com.”

Nonetheless, the post has since been removed. A link on the fraudulent site encouraged visitors to link their cryptocurrency accounts, likely to obtain their personal information.

The fraudulent post also removed the ability for users to leave comments, making the hack less apparent at first. Even after the initial post, a reply suggested that more details about the nonexistent token would be shared in the coming days.

This incident is not the first time OpenAI accounts have been targeted. In June 2023, the Twitter account of OpenAI’s Chief Technology Officer Mira Murati was compromised, also promoting the fake $OPEANAI token. Similar incidents have occurred in recent months affecting the Twitter accounts of OpenAI’s Chief Scientist Jakub Pachocki and researcher Jason Wei.