OpenAI CTO’s Twitter Account Seemingly Got Hacked to Promote a Crypto Scam

It appears that the Twitter account of Mira Murati, the chief technology officer (CTO) of ChatGPT developer, OpenAI, have got hacked to promote a cryptocurrency scam.

According to the reports, in the early hours of Friday, June 2^nd, Open CTO’s official Twitter account posted a thread promoting a phishing link promising an airdrop of a purported ERC-20 token OPENAI. One of the tweets read:

“We proudly present $OPENAI, a groundbreaking token driven by artificial intelligence-based language models. Visit Chaingpt (Phishing Site) to see if you are eligible for an airdrop directly to your $ETH address.”

🚨 Twitter account belonging to OpenAI CTO Mira Murati got hacked by crypto scammers 🚨 pic.twitter.com/k3oWsDo3cI

— John Jmz (@johnj1138) June 2, 2023

Crypto Community Immediately Raised Flags

The link led to a phishing website that mirrored the layout and site design of a real project called ChainGPT with some very slight tweaks; mainly its prompt to connect a crypto wallet. The tweet urged crypto fans to send their investments to a provided Ethereum (ETH) address to participate in the airdrop.

It promised that ETH investments would be exchanged for OPENAI tokens when the token launch commences a day after. Furthermore, the tweet’s author had restricted who could reply to the tweet, so others could not easily warn the link was a scam.

As soon as the thread went live, the community sensed something was off. Many were quick to sense that Mira Murati’s account had been hacked to promote this scam. According to some reports, the tweet was live for the next 50 minutes, viewed nearly 80,000 times, and retweeted more than 80 times before it was deleted.

🚨 Mira Murati, CTO of OpenAI, seemingly HACKED.

Stay safe, do not engage with the $OPENAI token or links posted on the account. https://t.co/lIA0VYXR1Y

— AI Authority (@Authority_AI) June 2, 2023

Some in the community theorize that she might be the victim of a sim-swapping attack. Murati’s account appears to have been restored to its original state, and the tweets have been deleted. However, there is no response from OpenAI’s CTO as of writing.

According to a Twitter account named Harrison, which calls itself the CTO of Pop Punk LLC, a gas-optimized smart contract developer/audit platform, the phishing site was frighteningly professional and used something called Pink Drainer, a crypto wallet-draining kit that lures visitors into signing requests. Per his tweets, this site is sophisticated that once the victim’s wallet is connected, it can drain both crypt assets and NFTs in that wallet.

Harrison’s tweet reads:

“PSA: Another case of a prominent figure sim swapped advertising a pink-drainer.eth infected website.
If you notice here, even @_joinfire extension shows that this is a safe signature request.
However, upon looking at the data of the transaction, you can see it approving NFTs.”

PSA: Another case of a prominent figure sim swapped advertising a pink-drainer.eth infected website.

If you notice here, even @_joinfire extension shows that this is a safe signature request.

However, upon looking at the data of the transaction, you can see it approving NFTs. pic.twitter.com/fNghR25bNZ

— Harrison (@PopPunkOnChain) June 2, 2023