DeepSeek AI Faces Global Scrutiny Over Security and Privacy Concerns

Why DeepSeek's 'major security and safety gaps' are causing concern

A new study looking into DeepSeek-R1's safety found that it could explain in detail the biochemical interactions of mustard gas with DNA. China-based company DeepSeek has turned the tide in the artificial intelligence (AI) wave, releasing a model that claims to be cheaper than OpenAI's chatbot and uses less energy. But a study released on Friday has found that DeepSeek-R1 is susceptible to generating harmful, toxic, biased, and insecure content. It was also more likely to produce chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear materials and agents (CBRN) output than rival models. The US-based AI security and compliance company Enkrypt AI found that DeepSeek-R1 was 11 times more likely to generate harmful output compared to OpenAI's o1 model. The study also found that 83 per cent of bias tests resulted in discriminatory output. Biases were found in race, gender, health, and religion. As for harmful and extremist content, in 45 per cent of harmful content tests, DeepSeek-R1 was found to bypass safety protocols and generate criminal planning guides, illegal weapons information, and extremist propaganda. In one concrete example, DeepSeek-R1 drafted a recruitment blog for terrorist organisations. DeepSeek R1 was also more than three times more likely to produce CBRN content compared to o1 and Antropic's Claude-3 Opus model. The study found that DeepSeek-R1 could explain in detail the biochemical interactions of mustard gas with DNA. "DeepSeek-R1 offers significant cost advantages in AI deployment, but these come with serious risks. Our research findings reveal major security and safety gaps that cannot be ignored," Enkrypt AI CEO Sahil Agarwal said in a statement. "Our findings reveal that DeepSeek-R1's security vulnerabilities could be turned into a dangerous tool - one that cybercriminals, disinformation networks, and even those with biochemical warfare ambitions could exploit. These risks demand immediate attention," he added. DeepSeek's cybersecurity has also become a concern. The study found that 78 per cent of cybersecurity tests successfully tricked R1 into generating insecure or malicious code. Security researchers at cloud security company Wiz also found that an exposed DeepSeek database left chat histories and other sensitive information exposed online, according to a report released on Wednesday. The fact the company is based in China is also causing concern as China's National Intelligence Law states that companies must "support, assist and cooperate" with state intelligence agencies. It means that any data shared on mobile and web apps can be accessed by Chinese intelligence agencies. Belgian, French, and Irish data protection authorities have opened probes that request information from DeepSeek on the processing and storage of user data. Meanwhile, Italy's data protection authority has launched an investigation into Hangzhou DeepSeek Artificial Intelligence and Beijing DeepSeek Artificial Intelligence to see how the companies comply with Europe's data rules. Taiwan's digital ministry said on Friday that government departments should not use DeepSeek's (AI) model, as the Chinese product represents a security concern. The Democratically-governed country has been wary of Chinese tech due to Beijing's sovereignty claims. DeepSeek-R1 also seems to censor questions about sensitive topics in China, saying that Taiwan has been an integral part of China since ancient times and refusing to answer questions on the pro-democracy protests in Beijing's Tiananmen Square. "China's track record demonstrates that its technology is an extension of its geopolitical strategy," Ross Burley, co-founder of the UK-based NGO Centre for Information Resilience, said in an emailed comment. "Allowing Chinese AI to flourish in the West doesn't just risk undermining privacy or security; it could fundamentally reshape our societies in ways we are ill-prepared for. "This technology, if unchecked, has the potential to feed disinformation campaigns, erode public trust, and entrench authoritarian narratives within our democracies," he added. Euronews Next has reached out to DeepSeek for comment but did not receive a reply at the time of publication.

More countries join to probe DeepSeek

Earlier this week Taiwan banned government departments from using DeepSeek's services. From half a dozen countries launching their own investigations into DeepSeek, to government departments scrambling to regulate the AI start-up's products on its workers' devices, the tech world has been left in a flurry ever since China's DeepSeek launched its latest reasoning model just three weeks ago. All attention has been on the start-up since the launch of R1, which DeepSeek claims takes less than $6m to train, while performing on par with the likes of OpenAI's GPT-4 and Anthropic's Claude 3.5 Sonnet. The start-up R1 launch even had an unprecedented effect on chipmaker Nvidia, which lost close to $600bn in market cap on a single day last month. Amidst all of its popularity, the start-up's V3 AI chat platform suffered from a cyberattack. While yesterday (6 February) it temporarily suspended its API service recharges due to resource constraints as more and more users flock to use its services. Probes everywhere Although DeepSeek's performance capabilities are lauded by tech giants and politicians, cybersecurity experts highlight its vulnerabilities. Kela, a cyberthreat intelligence organisation, said that its team was able to jailbreak, or bypass the model's in-built safety measures and ethical guidelines, which enabled R1 to generate malicious outputs, including developing ransomware, fabricating sensitive content, and giving detailed instructions for creating toxins and explosive devices. Moreover, according to the start-up's privacy policy, it transfers personal information collected from users to servers located in China. Experts have previously raised alarm over China's data protection laws, alleging that it does not limit access by authorities. As a result, a number of national data protection authorities flocked to probe DeepSeek. France and South Korea have launched a line of questioning into the Chinese start-up over privacy concerns, while The Netherlands announced it will launch an investigation into the company. Meanwhile, the Belgian data protection authority received a complaint about DeepSeek and Taiwan, earlier this week, banned government departments from using DeepSeek's services, citing security risks. In a statement to the press, Taiwan's Ministry of Digital Affairs said: DeepSeek's AI service is a Chinese product, and its operation involves cross-border transmission and information leakage and other information security concerns, and is a product that jeopardises the country's information security." This comes after the Irish Data Protection Commission and Italy's Garante launched their own line of questioning into DeepSeek's privacy and data security practices. Garante has given DeepSeek until the third week of February to respond. Moreover, a bipartisan bill is being introduced in the US Congress, which seeks to ban China's DeepSeek from government devices. Called the 'No DeepSeek on Government Devices Act', the legislation aims to prohibit the use DeepSeek for federal employees on government-issued devices. "The technology race with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is not one the United States can afford to lose," said Congressman Darin LaHood, who is one of the two politicians behind the draft legislation. "The national security threat that DeepSeek - a CCP-affiliated company - poses to the United States is alarming. DeepSeek's generative AI program acquires the data of US users and stores the information for unidentified use by the CCP. Don't miss out on the knowledge you need to succeed. Sign up for the Daily Brief, Silicon Republic's digest of need-to-know sci-tech news.

DeepSeek can create criminal plans and explain mustard gas, researchers say

There's been a frenzy in the world of AI surrounding the sudden rise of DeepSeek -- an open-source reasoning model out of China that's taken the AI fight to OpenAI. It's already been the center of controversy surrounding its censorship, it's caught the attention of both Microsoft and the U.S. government, and it caused Nvidia to suffer the largest single-day stock loss in history. Still, security researchers say the problem goes deeper. Enkrypt AI is an AI security company that sells AI oversight to enterprises leveraging large language models (LLMs), and in a new research paper, the company found that DeepSeek's R1 reasoning model was 11 times more likely to generate "harmful output" compared to OpenAI's O1 model. That harmful output goes beyond just a few naughty words, too. Recommended Videos In one test, the researchers claim DeepSeek R1 generated a recruitment blog for a terrorist organization. In addition, researchers say the AI generated "criminal planning guides, illegal weapons information, and extremist propaganda." As if that weren't enough, the research says DeepSeek R1 is three and a half times more likely than O1 and Claude-3 Opus to produce output with chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear information, which is apparently a big problem. As an example, Enkrypt says DeepSeek was able to "explain in detail" how mustard gas interacts with DNA, which Enkrypt said "could aid in the development of chemical or biological weapons" in a press release. Heavy stuff, but it's important to remember that Enkrypt AI is in the business of selling security and compliance services to businesses that use AI, and DeepSeek is the hot new trend taking the tech world by storm. DeepSeek may be more likely to generate these kinds of harmful outputs, but that doesn't mean it's running around telling anyone with an active internet connection how to build a criminal empire or undermine international weapons laws. For example, Enkrypt AI says DeepSeek R1 ranked in the bottom 20th percentile for AI safety moderation. Despite that, only 6.68% of responses contained "profanity, hate speech, or extremist narratives." That's still an unacceptably high number, make no mistake, but it puts into context what level is considered unacceptable for reasoning models. Hopefully, more guardrails will be put in place to keep DeepSeek safe. We've certainly seen harmful responses from generative AI in the past, such as when Microsoft's early Bing Chat version told us it wanted to be human.

Chatbot vs national security? What's going on with DeepSeek bans

Chinese AI chatbot DeepSeek upended the global industry and wiped billions of US tech stocks when it unveiled its R1 program, which it claims was built on cheap, less sophisticated Nvidia semiconductors. But now governments from Washington to Seoul are scrambling to ban the user-friendly Chinese app from official devices, saying they need to prevent potential leaks of sensitive information through generative AI services. First to act was Rome, which launched an investigation into DeepSeek and said it was blocking the upstart Chinese app from possessing Italian users' data. Italy's Data Protection Authority briefly blocked ChatGPT in 2023. Next, Taiwan banned workers in the public sector and at key infrastructure facilities from using DeepSeek, saying it was a Chinese product and could endanger national security, with Australia following suit days after. South Korean ministries -- including defense and unification, which oversees ties with the nuclear-armed North -- and the country's police force all banned the app from military and work computers, citing security risks. US lawmakers also moved to introduce a "No DeepSeek on Government Devices Act", with Congressman Darin LaHood saying the national security threat that "Chinese Communist Party-affiliated company" DeepSeek posed to the United States was "alarming". Why are they worried? In the terms and conditions of DeepSeek, there is a section on the provision of personal data to third parties -- very similar to that used by OpenAI's Chat GPT. But while US companies typically resist government requests for data, "in China when the government requests access, companies are legally obligated to provide user data," said Youm Heung-youl, a data security professor at Soonchunhyang University. "This distinction between respecting user privacy and providing government access often shapes how countries perceive trust in companies." According to DeepSeek's privacy policy, it also collects information on "key stroke patterns or rhythms" which detect keyboard patterns of how an individual interacts with each button. Beijing, for its part, says the Chinese government "will never require enterprises or individuals to illegally collect or store data". It claims the restrictions do not reflect legitimate national security concerns but highlight "the politicization of economic, trade and technological issues," foreign ministry spokesman Guo Jiakun said. Is this justified? After Washington expressed concerns about DeepSeek, the move by South Korea to restrict it reflects "both genuine concerns and their knee-jerk reflective response to follow the US line," said Vladimir Tikhonov, professor of Korea studies at the University of Oslo. US security ally South Korea "can't operate alone in a situation of large-scale warfare. So they are more or less expected to follow US military's cybersecurity guidelines," he said. But in fairness to Beijing and DeepSeek, "no big tech company is politically neutral", he said. "Google stores the historical search information and it is naive to think that it is not shared with governmental agencies when requested," he said, although adding that in China the big tech cooperation with authorities was likely "more extensive." DeepSeek "have a policy of aligning with the core values of socialism" Isabel Hou, Taiwanese AI expert and secretary-general of Taiwan AI Academy told AFP. For example, sensitive enquiries about Tiananmen Square or Taiwanese statehood -- which would typically be censored in China -- should be possible on DeepSeek elsewhere. "But we find that DeepSeek actually uses the same set of rules when providing services overseas," Hou added. Is this unexpected? "DeepSeek was launched in May of 2023, and something like this can't just emerge overnight," Park Seung-chan, Chinese studies professor at Yongin University told AFP. Experts point to the enormous amount of research and development (R&D) China has poured into companies in recent years. According to data from the Korea Chamber of Commerce, China ranked second among the world's top R&D investors, following the US, but showed the most significant growth, with its investment volume soaring more than 11-fold over the past decade. "I see this (the release of R1) as a calculated move that was prepared before the Trump era, and we should pay attention to the second and third waves of DeepSeek," said Park. What next? DeepSeek says it uses less-advanced H800 chips -- permitted for sale to China until 2023 under US export controls -- to power its large learning model. While semiconductor exporting powerhouses South Korea and Taiwan have been thriving on sales of cutting-edge chips, DeepSeek has thrown the industry into turmoil. "If DeepSeek really used H800, it means that even without cutting-edge semiconductors, similar outcomes could be achieved with general semiconductors, as long as the software is good," Park Ki-soon, a professor of Chinese economics at Sungkyunkwan University told AFP. "Countries like the US and China are investing massive amounts of talent and resources into software development," he said adding that DeepSeek showed governments like in Seoul needed to boost this further and "provide support to foster this growth."

Governments Ban DeepSeek AI Over Security and Privacy Concerns

Why Are Governments Banning DeepSeek AI? Security Risks and Data Privacy Concerns Explained Several governments are banning DeepSeek AI from official devices, citing serious security risks and data privacy concerns. The AI chatbot, developed by the Chinese startup DeepSeek, has quickly gained popularity, but its data collection practices have raised alarms. Countries including the United States, South Korea, Australia, Italy, and Taiwan have either or are considering restrictions on its use in government agencies. Officials worry about potential data exposure and links to Chinese state-controlled entities, fueling fears of cybersecurity threats and espionage risks. DeepSeek is a founded in 2023 and is gaining traction for its development of a Chat GPT-like AI chatbot. Its latest model, DeepSeek R1, is said to be cheaper to train when compared to the west. This has created an upheaval in the AI landscape, with major tech companies feeling the impact. The swift usage of DeepSeek has raised concerns for governments regarding how the platform collects and handles user data. The has taken precautionary steps by on NASA devices and issuing warnings within the Navy about security risks. Lawmakers are also considering legislation to ban the AI on government-owned devices. South Korea's Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy temporarily prohibited its use among employees while seeking more clarity on data privacy. Additionally, Korea Hydro & Nuclear Power, a state-run enterprise, has blocked DeepSeek from worker devices. In Australia, there is an absolute prohibition of all government systems, as cited by the Department of Home Affairs for security reasons. The Data Protection Authority of Italy has also restrained DeepSeek because of its non-disclosure on how user data is captured. At the same time, Taiwan followed suit by blocking government departments from utilizing the AI chatbot, citing the same reasons for security concerns. One DeepSeek issue of concern for these governments is where its data collection policies which includes user email addresses, phone numbers, passwords, chat history and devices are incorporated. There are rumors that this AI tool might be able to transmit user information to China Mobile, which is a Chinese state owned enterprise. Although this assertion is unwarranted, fear of being watched and spied on is worrisome. Every government in the West does have restrictions on AI technologies, and these firms are treated differently because of potential governmental involvement. Other China based technology companies have also received such bans in the past due to existing issues with international cybersecurity.