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Incident 1365: AkiraBot Reportedly Used OpenAI to Spam Website Chats and Contact Forms at Scale

Description: SentinelLabs reported that unknown operators used AkiraBot, a Python framework, plus OpenAI's chat API to generate customized SEO spam and bypass CAPTCHAs, posting via SMB websites' contact forms and Reamaze-style chat widgets. Researchers assessed >400k domains were targeted and ≥80k successfully spammed since 09/01/2024. OpenAI said the API key was disabled after disclosure.
Editor Notes: Timeline notes: (1) 09/01/2024: Earliest known reported AkiraBot activity (incident ID date); (2) 04/09/2025: SentinelLabs publishes report; (3) 02/08/2026: Incident ID created.

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Alleged: Unknown AkiraBot developers and OpenAI developed an AI system deployed by Unknown malicious actors and Unknown AkiraBot operators, which harmed Wix sites , Victims of AkiraBot , SquareSpace sites , Small business owners , Shopify sites , Medium-sized business owners , GoDaddy sites , Customers , Business website users and Business owners.
Alleged implicated AI systems: Telegram , SmartProxy , Selenium WebDriver , reCAPTCHA , OpenAI Chat Completions API , NextCaptcha , headless Chrome , hCAPTCHA , FastCaptcha , CAPTCHA , Capsolver , BeautifulSoup and AkiraBot

Incident Stats

Incident ID
1365
Report Count
4
Incident Date
2024-09-01
Editors
Daniel Atherton

Incident Reports

Reports Timeline

Incident Occurrence+3
AkiraBot | AI-Powered Bot Bypasses CAPTCHAs, Spams Websites At Scale
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AkiraBot | AI-Powered Bot Bypasses CAPTCHAs, Spams Websites At Scale

AkiraBot | AI-Powered Bot Bypasses CAPTCHAs, Spams Websites At Scale

sentinelone.com

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AkiraBot Targets 420,000 Sites with OpenAI-Generated Spam, Bypassing CAPTCHA Protections

AkiraBot Targets 420,000 Sites with OpenAI-Generated Spam, Bypassing CAPTCHA Protections

thehackernews.com

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‘AkiraBot’ Spammed 80,000 Websites With AI-Generated Messages

‘AkiraBot’ Spammed 80,000 Websites With AI-Generated Messages

securityweek.com

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Scammers Use OpenAI API to Flood 80,000 Websites With Spam

Scammers Use OpenAI API to Flood 80,000 Websites With Spam

pcmag.com

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AkiraBot | AI-Powered Bot Bypasses CAPTCHAs, Spams Websites At Scale
sentinelone.com · 2025

Executive Summary

  • AkiraBot is a framework used to spam website chats and contact forms en masse to promote a low-quality SEO service.
  • SentinelLABS assesses that AkiraBot has targeted more than 400,000 websites and successfully spammed at l…
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AkiraBot Targets 420,000 Sites with OpenAI-Generated Spam, Bypassing CAPTCHA Protections
thehackernews.com · 2025

Cybersecurity researchers have disclosed details of an artificial intelligence (AI) powered platform called AkiraBot that's used to spam website chats, comment sections, and contact forms to promote dubious search engine optimization (SEO) …

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‘AkiraBot’ Spammed 80,000 Websites With AI-Generated Messages
securityweek.com · 2025

A newly identified Python framework spamming the contact forms and chat widgets on the websites of small and medium-sized businesses has made over 80,000 victims over the past half a year, SentinelOne reports.

Dubbed AkiraBot due to its use…

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Scammers Use OpenAI API to Flood 80,000 Websites With Spam
pcmag.com · 2025

An AI spambot used OpenAI's GPT-4o-mini to flood websites with spam comments.

According to cybersecurity firm SentinelOne, AkiraBot successfully targeted at least 80,000 websites, mainly operated by small to medium-sized businesses using e-…

Variants

A "variant" is an AI incident similar to a known case—it has the same causes, harms, and AI system. Instead of listing it separately, we group it under the first reported incident. Unlike other incidents, variants do not need to have been reported outside the AIID. Learn more from the research paper.
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