Phishing attacks under the guise of ChatGPT are gaining momentum

OpenAI development has officially entered the list of ten brands most often imitated by cybercriminals for phishing attacks. Now the popular chatbot stands in the same row with such technological giants as Google, Apple and Microsoft.

ChatGPT under the crosshairs of hackers

According to Check Point’s State of Phishing report for the second quarter of 2026, ChatGPT accounted for 1.1% of all recorded phishing attacks. Although this number seems relatively small, entering the global top 10 confirms the sharp increase in the interest of fraudsters in the product.

In the current ranking, the OpenAI product is in the neighborhood of such large platforms as PayPal (1.3% of attacks), WhatsApp (1.4%) and Facebook (1.9%). Leadership in anti-rating is still held by Microsoft, whose main brand accounts for 22.6% of incidents, and LinkedIn accounts for an additional 11.6%.

Mechanisms of attacks

The main vector of the attack was fake messages about problems that allegedly occurred with the payment of the ChatGPT Plus subscription. Scammers carefully imitate the visual style of OpenAI, trying to trick the victim into following a link and entering payment details on a fake page.

Experts note an ironic nuance: in order to create more convincing phishing messages and campaigns, attackers themselves increasingly resort to the help of tools based on artificial intelligence.

Technology companies remain a top target for cybercriminals, followed by social media and the banking sector.

Data protection

Although the nature of attacks is changing, their methods remain classic: creating panic, counterfeiting official brands, and demanding passwords or payment information. To protect accounts, experts strongly recommend:

• Avoid clicking on dubious links from e-mails.
• Check carefully the address of the sender of the message.
• Use passkeys instead of regular passwords.
• Always enable multifactor authentication.