[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":-1},["ShallowReactive",2],{"$fcEYO1bhDQHcIwafZRRMbn08So6B0t7uEEZvg1nwSeEw":3},{"article":4,"iocs":48},{"id":5,"title":6,"slug":7,"summary":8,"ai_summary":9,"brief":10,"full_text":11,"url":12,"image_url":13,"published_at":14,"ingested_at":15,"relevance_score":16,"entities":17,"category_id":30,"category":31,"article_tags":35},"c40a7a0d-2a03-48fa-af04-3ed821fd386e","OpenAI Bans Russian ChatGPT Accounts Used to Run Influence Operation","openai-bans-russian-chatgpt-accounts-used-to-run-influence-operation-b88f84","OpenAI on Tuesday said it banned a cluster of Russian ChatGPT accounts that used VPNs to bypass access restrictions and run an influence operation, which relied on its artificial intelligence (AI) tool to generate social media posts and comments that were shared on Substack, Telegram, X, Facebook and LinkedIn. The accounts \"were being used to promote the International Burke Institute (IBI), a","OpenAI has banned a group of Russian ChatGPT accounts that were used to generate content for an influence operation. These accounts leveraged VPNs to bypass restrictions and used AI to create social media posts and comments promoting the International Burke Institute (IBI), an Israeli-based 'expert community'. The operation also involved a website with copied academic work and a 'sovereignty' index designed to portray Russia favorably.","OpenAI banned Russian ChatGPT accounts used for influence operations promoting the International Burke Institute.","OpenAI Bans Russian ChatGPT Accounts Used to Run Influence Operation Ravie LakshmananAug 26, 2026Artificial Intelligence \u002F Disinformation OpenAI on Tuesday said it banned a cluster of Russian ChatGPT accounts that used VPNs to bypass access restrictions and run an influence operation, which relied on its artificial intelligence (AI) tool to generate social media posts and comments that were shared on Substack, Telegram, X, Facebook and LinkedIn. The accounts \"were being used to promote the International Burke Institute (IBI), a self-described 'expert community' based in Israel,\" the company said. \"What began as an investigation into AI-generated social media posts led us to a much broader influence operation, built around a website containing copied and misattributed academic work, a 'sovereignty' index that cast Russia in a favourable light, and efforts to disguise the operators' Russian origins.\" The campaign is assessed to have reached \"relatively small audiences,\" with Telegram channels attracting more users and amassing about 10-20,000 followers each. The majority of the generated content was in English and the operators instructed ChatGPT to conceal any linguistic clues that could allude to their Russian provenance. The IBI brand is associated with a website (\"ibi[.]institute\") that was registered in February 2025. It claims to be a community of leading experts from across the world in matters of economics, politics, sociology and international relations. There is no evidence that articles published on the site were created using ChatGPT. However, many of them seem to have been copied from academic writings, in some cases with false attribution, while others were seemingly drafted by a Slavic speaker and then machine translated to English. What's more, OpenAI said the covert campaign is distinct from already documented Russia-linked⁠ influence operations, its notable aspect being the creation of a sovereignty index that was promoted by the so-called think tank to project Russia favorably and criticize Western countries. The website explains the Sovereignty Index, also called the Burke Index, is calculated by taking into account seven indicators that span account political, economic, technological, information, cultural, cognitive, and military sovereignty. \"Each of the 7 areas of sovereignty is calculated using equalization coefficients based on a maximum score of 100 points, which in turn is formed from official national and global data sources and expert assessments,\" the website states. \"The sum of 7 indices in the range of 100-700 forms the final Cumulative Sovereignty Index.\" The IBI website also includes reports on different countries and their sovereignty, as measured by the index. The U.S. leads the list with a score of 650.9, followed by China at 649.1, Switzerland at 610.7, and Russia at 601.4. The report on Russia includes the following assessment - In 2025, Russia is a state with a high level of sovereignty and record military and economic self-sufficiency, a strong scientific and cultural base, but with limited flexibility of the civilian economy and dependence on internal administrative capital. The main vectors of strengthening are demography, investments in high technologies and gradual liberalization in non-military science and innovation. The sovereignty profile indicates that by 2025 Russia has established a stable and high level of national sovereignty, from financial and military self-sufficiency to digital and cultural control over the internal environment. The country has become one of the three world powers with full digital and military nuclear sovereignty. Demographic aging, innovation constraints, and selective global integration remain key challenges, requiring a balance between closure and modernization. The activity extended beyond generating content about IBI, as one of the ChatGPT users used the tool to create a profile picture for a Telegram channel named \"American Observer\" and repeatedly asked for Russian-language summaries of the channel activity. \"The significance of the operation lies less in the audience it reached, however, than in the infrastructure it had built,\" OpenAI said. \"While the actors only used ChatGPT to produce isolated promotional posts, those posts pointed to an otherwise credible-appearing institution, complete with purported experts, republished academic work and a purported proprietary risk index.\" \"This illustrates how influence actors can use AI as a supporting tool within a broader effort to manufacture authority, obscure the source of favored narratives, and establish assets that could be scaled over time. It also illustrates how their supporting use of AI can lead to the broader operation being exposed.\" Found this article interesting? 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SHARE     Tweet Share Share Share SHARE  artificial intelligence, Disinformation, Influence Operation, Information Warfare, Nation-State, Online security, Social Media, Threat Intelligence ⚡ Top Stories This Week Microsoft Patches Severe Entra ID Flaw (CVSS 10.0) Allowing Remote Code Execution ThreatsDay: Gogs 10.0 RCE, n8n Workflow-to-RCE, $10M Reward, GLM-5.3 AI Exploit, and More New Cryptographic Context Injection Attack Could Let Web Pages Steal Grok Chat Data Zombie Card Attack Can Revive Expired Visa Cards for Contactless Payments CDN Tsunami Attack Abuses HTTP\u002F3 Translation for Up to 350x DoS Amplification Manic Android Malware Exfiltrates Data From Offline Phones via Nearby Infected Devices Cloudflare Workers Spectre Attack Leaks JWT From Co-Located Worker at 12 Bits\u002FSecond OpenAI Pauses Frontier RL Training as It Tightens Defenses Against Unsafe AI Behavior Hackers Compromised 14,500+ Dahua Devices Using Credential Attacks, Auth Bypasses, and P2P Microsoft Copilot Personal Flaws Could Let One Click Exfiltrate Data From Connected Apps AI \"Mind Viruses\" Can Spread Between Agents Through Persistent Prompt Files SafePal Hardware Wallet Maker Says Flaw Exposed Data of Nearly 40,000 Customers Critical GitLab GraphQL Flaw Could Let Unauthenticated Attackers Delete Public Projects ⚡ Weekly Recap: VMware Exploits, Windows 0-Day, MCP Attacks, Browser Hijacks and More Unisoc VoLTE Video Call Exploit Chain Can Give Attackers Full Android Kernel Access Evooo1Bot Linux Botnet Exploits Known Flaws to Turn Edge Devices Into SOCKS5 Proxies SAP Commerce Cloud CVE-2026-58231 Targeted in Exploitation Attempts Days After Patch Hackers Spend Nearly $7 Million on Expired Domains to Redirect Traffic to Scams and Malware Apple Warns Users in 110 Countries They May Be Targets of Mercenary Spyware Trump Memo Paves Way for U.S. Firms to Hack and Disrupt Foreign Crime Groups GeoServer Zero-Day Targeted in Active Exploitation Attempts, Can Lead to RCE Attackers Exploit SharePoint Authentication Bypass After Public PoC Release Lazarus Exploits Windows Zero-Day to Gain SYSTEM Access and Deploy Backdoor Attackers Exploit VMware vCenter Vulnerability to Gain Persistent Remote Access ShieldBreak Zero-Day PoC Claims Microsoft Defender Patch Bypass With SYSTEM Access ⭐ Featured Resources See How Keeper Secrets Manager Removes Hard-Coded Credentials Download the CISO's Guide to Smarter AI Security Investment Phishing Is Costing Security Teams More Than Ever — Read the New Report Build AI Agents and Automations Without Losing Security Control","https:\u002F\u002Fthehackernews.com\u002F2026\u002F08\u002Fopenai-bans-russian-chatgpt-accounts.html","https:\u002F\u002Fblogger.googleusercontent.com\u002Fimg\u002Fb\u002FR29vZ2xl\u002FAVvXsEigTy6eveBIHNz8iNQ-RoRYOH0dYFTNhtA48mobGTTueVsSSQpFu7qFmSGivtklGBbQutM5ro14LI3Yzq3SxTFaTGPfq350Fe73t_FE4ehl9Y0kRnEVIYIN5K66R-sxa86YTuYDaLOyWdLSxR1AUmCx3UlEMed7dUvA-RtcVLFdmeVP2PTPyebMV-tDBuSg\u002Fs1600\u002Fchatgpt.jpg","2026-08-26T09:38:45+00:00","2026-08-26T12:00:27.096804+00:00",8,[18,21,24,27],{"name":19,"type":20},"OpenAI","vendor",{"name":22,"type":23},"ChatGPT","product",{"name":25,"type":26},"Russia","threat_actor",{"name":28,"type":29},"International Burke Institute (IBI) influence operation","campaign","6cbdd207-aaa1-4176-9534-e156b125e917",{"id":30,"icon":32,"name":33,"slug":34},null,"Nation-state","nation-state",[36,38,43],{"category":37},{"id":30,"icon":32,"name":33,"slug":34},{"category":39},{"id":40,"icon":32,"name":41,"slug":42},"839da5c1-3c34-47e2-9499-f7201640e3ac","AI Security","ai-security",{"category":44},{"id":45,"icon":32,"name":46,"slug":47},"e7b231c8-5f79-4465-8d38-1ef13aea5a14","Threat Intelligence","threat-intelligence",[49],{"type":50,"value":51,"context":52},"domain","ibi[.]institute","Website used by the influence operation"]