OpenAI CTO’s Twitter hacked, shilling ‘scam’ crypto airdrop

Crypto Twitter has been flooded with warnings from users, after the Twitter account of Mita Murati, the chief technology officer of artificial intelligence firm OpenAI, was seemingly hacked —  promoting a “scam” cryptocurrency airdrop.

On June 2, Murati’s account tweeted what appeared to be a phishing link promising an airdrop of a purported ERC-20 token OPENAI named after the firm that created ChatGPT. 

Murati has 126,200 followers on Twitter and has a verified account on the platform. The post was live for about an hour and viewed 79,600 times and retweeted 83 times before it was deleted.

The tweet’s author had restricted who could reply to the tweet so others were unable to easily warn the link was a scam.

Related: Crypto phishing scams: How users can stay protected

Some Twitter users theorize that Murati was a victim of a SIM-swapping attack.

We don’t know what’s going on yet (SIM attack?)

But NO WAY this is really Mira. This is a scam. https://t.co/zlp4SsR41l

— Mark Jeffrey (@markjeffrey) June 2, 2023

This is a developing story, and further information will be added as it becomes available.

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