OpenAI claims hackers stole data after the latest security issue

Earlier this week, hackers hacked several open source projects used by many companies to push updates designed to spread malware. This is the latest in a series of so-called “supply chain” attacks targeting software developers and their projects.

On Wednesday, OpenAI confirmed that two employees had their devices “affected by this.” But, after investigation, the company said in a blog post that it found “no evidence that OpenAI data was accessed, that our operating systems or intellectual property was compromised, or that our software was modified.”

OpenAI said workers’ devices were compromised by an early attack on TanStack, a popular open-source library that helps developers build web applications.

Monday, TanStack he revealed the plot and published a post-mortem, saying that hackers had published 84 malicious versions of his software in a six-minute window. The service said a researcher discovered the attack within 20 minutes. TanStack’s malware included malware designed to steal information from the computers the software was installed on, and spread itself to other systems.

For its part, OpenAI said it saw unauthorized access and data theft “in a small portion of the internal storage that the two operators encountered.”

According to the AI ​​giant, “only a small amount of information” was taken from the affected database. As a precaution, given that the affected databases contained digital certificates used to sign OpenAI products, the company said it is circulating the certificates “as a precaution,” which will require MacOS users to update the software.

“We found no evidence of compromise or vulnerability in existing software implementations,” the company wrote.

It is unclear who is behind TanStack. Some of the previous hacks were attributed to a terrorist group known as TeamPCP, the group itself was the target of the vandals.

But there are other groups that have used the same tactics to fight other jobs. In March, North Korean terrorists hacked Axiosa popular open source tool, and pushed malware that would have infected millions of developers. And in May, Chinese pirates were accused of the same thing targeting thousands of Windows computers that have Daemon Tools image capture software.

In these attacks, instead of targeting other companies, hackers take over open source projects and push malware disguised as regular updates. This allows them to compromise multiple targets with a single hack, spreading the damage across the internet.