Fake ChatGPT billing email targets work and home users | IT Pro

A fake ChatGPT subscription invoice email is being used as a phishing lure to steal account credentials for users' OpenAI accounts.

Targeting both work and personal users, the email is headed: 'Urgent: Update Your Payment Method to Avoid Service Interruption', and urges victims to pay an outstanding balance of $23.80 within 48 hours.

The email, though, comes from a fake email address – [email protected] – rather than an official OpenAI domain. And the 'Update Payment Information' button uses a Google API wrapper, which then redirects to a malicious payload via a webpage where a user could make a sign-in attempt.

The Google API redirect sends the victim to a page that's extremely similar to the genuine ChatGPT sign-in portal, with legitimate logos, text, and icons.

"With AI growing in popularity over the past few years, it is no surprise that threat actors are beginning to spoof ChatGPT," Josh Varden of the Cofense Phishing Defense Center (PDC) said .

"Utilizing similar tactics to other phishing examples, the threat actors frequently exploit urgency and perceived trustworthiness to manipulate users into taking actions that compromise their security."

Cofense listed three indicators of compromise, all of which should be fairly easy to spot: the Google redirect link and two paths on the same nxcli[.]io host, login.php and key.php. Meanwhile, simply hovering over the address bar to check that it says auth.openai.com would reveal the scam.

However, this is just the latest credential-stealing phishing email to impersonate major services.

"The PDC has identified many other examples of similar credential stealing phish, most commonly spoofing Microsoft, Google, and Adobe. With AI growing in popularity over the past few years, it is no surprise that threat actors are beginning to spoof ChatGPT," said Varden.

"Utilizing similar tactics to other phishing examples, the threat actors frequently exploit urgency and perceived trustworthiness to manipulate users into taking actions that compromise their security."

Meanwhile, attackers are increasingly exploiting AI services as phishing lures. This summer, Microsoft Threat Intelligence said it was increasingly seeing similar phishing , malvertising, and engine optimization (SEO)-driven attacks, impersonating the branding of AI platforms including ChatGPT, Microsoft Copilot, DeepSeek , and Anthropic's Claude.

One campaign, again telling users that they needed to update their payment information, consisted of 4,500 emails sent to targets in South Africa, and was part of a broader campaign delivering as many as 100,000 emails on a single day to targets in Switzerland, Austria, and South Africa.

Other examples included a phishing campaign impersonating Anthropic-branded services.

"While AI chatbots are extremely helpful tools in performing repetitive tasks, users need to be aware that, like with all account creation, the threat of credential theft is still persistent," Varden warned.

"Whether it is a traditional phishing attack... or the use of smishing/vishing, attackers are constantly finding unique pathways through security systems and secure email gateways (SEGs)."