Kaspersky has detected a scam tactic leveraging the OpenAI platform. Attackers are abusing OpenAI’s organisation creation and team invitation features to send spam emails from legitimate OpenAI addresses, potentially tricking users into clicking scam links or calling fraudulent phone numbers.

The spam campaign begins with attackers registering an account on the OpenAI platform. During registration, users are prompted to enter an organisation name, which can consist of any combination of symbols. Scammers exploit this by embedding deceptive text and fraudulent links or phone numbers directly into the field for organisation name itself.

Once the “organisation” is created, OpenAI provides an option to “invite your team,” allowing the input of target email addresses of victims. When invitations are sent, they originate from OpenAI’s address, making them appear fully legitimate from a technical standpoint.

Kaspersky detected several types of messages containing email threats sent in such a way. These are scam emails that promote fraudulent offers, such as adult services. Another attack angle is vishing – false notifications claiming a subscription has been renewed for a large sum: attackers instruct recipients to call a provided phone number to “cancel” the charge or take other actions that lead to further compromise. There may also be other email threats spreading via OpenAI platform.

The text that the attackers want the victims to read (highlighted in bold in the email template) is structurally inconsistent with the rest of the email template – which was originally designed to invite project collaborators. But the attackers bet on the fact that the victims would not pay attention.

“This case highlights a vulnerability in how platform features can be weaponised for social engineering email attacks. By embedding deceptive elements in seemingly innocuous fields like organisation names, scammers attempt to bypass traditional email filters and exploit user trust in reputable services.

“We urge all users to verify invitations carefully and avoid clicking embedded links without scrutiny. We also recommend brands to consider whether their online services or platforms could be abused by attackers,” comments Anna Lazaricheva, senior spam analyst at Kaspersky.

In 2025, the retail and e-commerce sector continued to face intense pressure from cybercriminals. According to Kaspersky data, 14,41%* of users in the global retail sector encountered web-based threats, while 22,20% were affected by on-device attacks.

Ransomware remains a serious concern for the industry. Last year, 8,25% of retail and e-commerce companies experienced ransomware incidents, and the number of unique B2B users in the sector affected by ransomware detections rose by 152% compared to 2023, signalling a sharp escalation in targeted attacks.

Phishing also continues to be a major threat vector. Kaspersky identified 6.7 million phishing attacks targeting users of online stores, delivery services, and payment systems in 2025. More than half of these attacks (50,58%) were aimed specifically at online stores, underscoring cybercriminals’ focus on e-commerce platforms as high-value targets for fraud and data theft.

A look at 2025 cybersecurity for retail & e-commerce: Trends and what happened

A stealer with a taste for pizza delivery. Shopping and food ordering via mobile apps are routine user behaviours. However, 2025 demonstrated that even downloading a seemingly legitimate app from an official app store does not guarantee safety, nor does it ensure that user data and financial credentials will not be compromised.

Ransomware detections in the B2B sector increased due to a single dominant actor. The number of unique users in the Retail & E-commerce sector who encountered ransomware detections increased by 152% in 2025 compared to 2023 (Nov 2024 – Oct 2025 vs. Nov 2022 – Oct 2023).

The most significant growth occurred during the 2024-2025 period and is largely attributable to the rapid spread of the Trojan-Ransom.Win32. Dcryptor family, which became highly prevalent across the retail and e-commerce sector in some of the analysed markets. This malware is a trojanised ransomware variant that leverages the legitimate DiskCryptor utility to encrypt disk partitions on victim systems.

Phishing activity in the online retail segment stood out. Despite being a long-established attack technique, phishing remains highly prevalent in the context of online purchasing.

From November 2024 through to October 2025, Kaspersky products blocked 6,651,955 attempts to access phishing links targeting users of online stores, payment systems, and delivery services. Of these attempts, 50.58% targeted online shoppers, 27.3% impersonated payment systems, and 22.12% targeted users of delivery companies.

Sales seasons continue to do the work for attackers. Seasonal peaks in online shopping consistently provide attackers with predictable opportunities to scale user-focused attacks.

Periods of heightened promotional activity lower user vigilance and allow familiar phishing and spam scenarios to blend into legitimate marketing traffic, increasing their overall effectiveness.

Predictions: What retail & e-commerce cybersecurity might face in 2026

Chatbots are likely to become a common product discovery tool across online marketplaces. Unlike traditional search, conversational interfaces encourage users to share more detailed, natural-language requests, revealing preferences, constraints, and contextual information.

This shift expands the privacy attack surface, as platforms accumulate richer user profiles through chat interactions. As a result, chatbot logs may become as sensitive as transactional data, increasing the risks of over-collection, misuse, or exposure of personal information.

“Search itself is changing, including how people look for products online. In 2025, there was a gradual shift from simple keyword queries to more conversational and visual ways of finding what to buy. As these models rely on broader user input, careful handling of the data involved will remain an important consideration for maintaining user trust,” comments Anna Larkina, Web data and privacy analysis expert at Kaspersky.

Changes in taxes and trade rules might be exploited in online fraud. Modifications in taxes, import duties, and cross-border trade rules are likely to be used as lures in phishing campaigns and fraudulent online stores, promoting unrealistically cheap offers or claims of avoided fees.

As pricing and fee rules continue to evolve across markets, it may lower vigilance, increasing the effectiveness of such schemes, particularly against small and mid-sized retailers.

AI-powered shopping assistants are expected to increasingly operate outside retail platforms, embedding themselves into browsers, mobile apps, and third-party services. While designed to simplify navigation and price discovery, these tools shift data collection beyond the retailer’s perimeter, creating new and less visible privacy risks.

To function effectively, external AI shopping agents require continuous access to user behaviour, including browsing activity, search intent, location context and product interactions across multiple sites.

This enables the aggregation of detailed behavioural profiles outside the direct control of both users and retail platforms, increasing the risks of over-collection, opaque data usage, and unintended exposure.

Image-based product search might become a new challenge in privacy risks. Previously, the main privacy concern around user images in e-commerce was limited to photos voluntarily shared in product reviews.

However, image-based product search is expected to make photo uploads a routine part of the shopping experience across major retail platforms. While this feature improves product discovery, it also increases the risk of unintended exposure of personal data.

User-submitted images may contain faces, home environments, or sensitive details, such as names, phone numbers, or addresses visible on shipping labels or packaging, making secure processing, data minimisation, and limited retention critical requirements for retailers.

Elon Musk, billionaire Tesla owner, has asked a United States (US) federal court to award him up to $134 billion in damages from OpenAI and Microsoft, stating that the companies earned “wrongful gains” from his early support of the artificial intelligence startup.

Elon Musk,

This is according to a court filing, reported by Reuters.

In filings ahead of a trial expected to start in April in Oakland, California, Musk stated that OpenAI benefited between $65.5 billion and $109.4 billion from his contributions when he helped co-found the organisation in 2015, and Microsoft gained between $13.3 billion and $25.1 billion through its involvement.

He has asked a United States (US) federal court to award him up to $134 billion in damages from OpenAI and Microsoft, stating that the companies earned “wrongful gains” from his early support of the artificial intelligence startup.

This is according to a court filing, reported by Reuters.

In filings ahead of a trial expected to start in April in Oakland, California, Musk stated that OpenAI benefited between $65.5 billion and $109.4 billion from his contributions when he helped co-found the organisation in 2015, and Microsoft gained between $13.3 billion and $25.1 billion through its involvement.

Musk’s legal team argues that his early financial and strategic contributions, including approximately $38 million in seed funding, the recruitment of key personnel, and assistance in connecting founders with contacts, laid the foundation for the later success of OpenAI and Microsoft’s commercial AI efforts.

“Without Elon Musk, there’d be no OpenAI. He provided the bulk of the seed funding, lent his reputation, and taught them all he knew about scaling a business. A pre-eminent expert quantified the value of that,” Musk’s lead trial lawyer Steven Molo told Reuters.

“Just as an early investor in a startup company may realise gains many orders of magnitude greater than the investor’s initial investment, the wrongful gains that OpenAI and Microsoft have earned—and which Mr Musk is now entitled to disgorge—are much larger than Mr Musk’s initial contributions,” the filing said.

Musk, who left OpenAI’s board in 2018 and now leads AI company xAI, alleges that OpenAI violated its founding non-profit mission when it restructured to include a for-profit arm tied to Microsoft’s investment and commercial strategy.

Meanwhile, OpenAI has labelled the lawsuit “baseless” and part of a “harassment campaign” by Musk, and Microsoft’s legal team has said there is no evidence the company “aided and abetted” OpenAI in any wrongdoing.

Both companies have asked the judge to limit what Musk’s expert witness may present at trial, arguing that the damages calculations are unreliable and could mislead a jury.

According to Reuters, Musk’s filing says he may pursue punitive damages and other penalties, including a possible injunction, if the jury finds the companies liable, though it did not specify what form any injunction would take.