OpenAI CTO’s Twitter Account Used for Crypto Airdrop Scam

Concerns regarding a “scam” crypto airdrop advertised under the account of Mira Murati, CTO of artificial intelligence company OpenAI, flooded Twitter on June 2. It seems that Murati’s account, which was hacked, had tweeted a phishing link promoting an ERC-20 token airdrop purportedly created by the firm behind ChatGPT.

In addition, Murati’s Twitter is verified and followed by 126,200 people. During its almost hour-long lifespan, the tweet was viewed 79,600 times and retweeted 83 times. Because the original tweeter had turned off responses, it was impossible for other users to warn them that the link was associated with a fraudulent website.

Quite Polished and Near-exact Copy

The website referenced in the tweet is quite polished and seems to be a near-exact duplicate of the design and content of a real project called ChainGPT, with the only notable difference being the inclusion of a prompt to connect a crypto wallet.

The site “lures visitors into signing requests,” a security researcher from blockchain security firm Beosin said. The exploiting party, upon signing, will move NFTs and ERC-20 tokens from the victim’s wallet to their own.

As OpenAI’s chief technical officer, Murati is responsible for the organization’s AI tools, such as the ChatGPT chatbot and the DALL-E art-generating AI system.

The release of ChatGPT in late November caused a sensation. Microsoft invested $10 billion in the company despite Google’s concerns that the technology may hurt the search giant’s bottom line. In response, Google introduced its own artificial intelligence product called Bard.