Date: 25 March 2025
In late January 2025, the Chinese AI platform DeepSeek – a rapidly rising competitor in the AI chatbot space – suffered a major cyber attack that exposed sensitive data and disrupted its services. The incident combined an AI data breach of internal records with a supply chain malware campaign and denial-of-service attacks, all hitting DeepSeek at the peak of its popularity.
International regulators and lawmakers took notice, leading to bans and investigations into DeepSeek’s security practices. We have created a well-researched timeline of the DeepSeek cyber attack to make sense of the ClickHouse vulnerability and other exploits involved. The timeline also encapsulates the highlights, key impacts and AI platform security lessons from the headline-making breach.
The Rise of DeepSeek
DeepSeek is a relatively new AI startup that quickly gained global attention in late 2024 for its advanced large-language model “DeepSeek R1.” Marketed as a low-cost yet powerful alternative to offerings from U.S. tech giants, DeepSeek’s model reportedly matched or outperformed the capabilities of models like OpenAI’s GPT, at significantly lower costs
This promise of high performance and affordability led to a meteoric surge in popularity for DeepSeek. By January 2025, DeepSeek’s AI Assistant app had overtaken OpenAI’s ChatGPT as the top downloaded app on the Apple App Store, signaling how quickly it had captured users’ interest.
However, the platform’s rapid rise also attracted unwanted attention. Security researchers and threat actors alike began probing DeepSeek’s defences. In late January, a cybersecurity firm (KELA) demonstrated that DeepSeek was relatively easy to “jailbreak”. Around the same time, malicious actors were preparing to exploit DeepSeek’s exploding popularity through more direct means, ultimately leading to a significant cyber attack on the platform.
The DeepSeek Cyber Attack
The DeepSeek cyber attack unfolded over several days in late January and February 2025. On January 27, 2025, the platform suddenly halted new user registrations after experiencing “large-scale malicious attacks” on its services.
It was believed that DeepSeek’s systems were being hit by a distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack targeting the platform’s API and web chat interface. This aggressive traffic surge threatened service availability and prompted DeepSeek to limit access for new users as an emergency measure.
The same day alarming news emerged that DeepSeek had exposed a massive internal database to the public internet. Security researchers from Wiz discovered two publicly accessible ClickHouse database instances that were left open with no authentication.
These unsecured databases contained over one million log entries of DeepSeek’s operations – including users’ chat histories in plaintext, API keys, secret access tokens, backend system details, and other highly sensitive information. In other words, a treasure trove of private data was sitting exposed. Even more concerning, the misconfigured databases allowed anyone full control to run queries and potentially escalate privileges within DeepSeek’s environment. Wiz researchers immediately and responsibly disclosed the critical leak to DeepSeek, and the company promptly secured the exposed databases upon notification.
This incident was not a single vulnerability exploit, but rather a combination of security failures and attack vectors. The DeepSeek cyber attack can be broken down into three main technical issues: an exposed ClickHouse database, malicious PyPI malware packages, and direct attacks on DeepSeek’s API/platform (DDoS and abuse of stolen keys).
The intricate details of how these vulnerabilities were exploited are explained in our DeepSeek Cyber Attack Timeline.
Impact on DeepSeek Users and Operations
The DeepSeek cyber attack had significant consequences for both the platform’s users and its business operations. Perhaps the most troubling impact was the exposure of user information. DeepSeek’s leaked databases contained chat histories that users had with the AI – potentially including personal or sensitive queries made to the assistant.
The malicious PyPI packages introduced risks for developers and organizations integrating DeepSeek. Those who installed deepseek or deepseekai had their workstations infected, leading to theft of their credentials and possibly unauthorised access to their systems.
DeepSeek’s decision to shut off new registrations and reports of DDoS attacks indicate that service availability was degraded. While existing users could still log in, the platform likely experienced slow responses or intermittent issues during the attack. According to internal reports, the downtime lasted for at least a few hours on January 27.
News of the breach and attacks had immediate repercussions in the broader market. As BleepingComputer noted, the revelation of DeepSeek’s security issues contributed to a “massive sell-off in the US stock market as the AI arms race heats up”.
DeepSeek itself, being a private Chinese startup, might not have stock traded in the U.S., but the incident likely affected its valuation and reputation. Trust is crucial for an AI platform – users and enterprise clients need confidence that the system is secure. The breach may have made potential customers skeptical, thereby impacting DeepSeek’s business prospects.
From a privacy standpoint, the incident raised red flags internationally. European regulators, for instance, immediately questioned whether DeepSeek was handling EU users’ data legally. Users in regions with strict data protection laws might wonder if their personal information was processed in compliance with those laws. DeepSeek’s initial claim that GDPR didn’t apply to it proved damaging – it led to swift legal action in Italy and likely scrutiny from other countries. For users, this creates uncertainty about using the service, since regulatory bans or restrictions could cut off access without much warning (as happened in Italy).
In summary, the DeepSeek cyber attack not only breached data but also shook user confidence, caused service interruptions, and invited legal challenges – a trifecta of impacts that any tech company would find daunting. The next section looks at how DeepSeek and the security community responded to contain the damage.
Lessons Learned and Key Takeaways
The DeepSeek incident offers several important lessons for cybersecurity professionals and tech companies, especially those in the fast-moving AI sector. Below are key takeaways from this cyber attack:
- Secure Cloud Databases by Default: Misconfigured databases can be as dangerous as software bugs. Always ensure that databases (e.g., ClickHouse, Elasticsearch, etc.) are not exposed to the public internet without proper authentication and network restrictions. In DeepSeek’s case, an open ClickHouse instance led to a massive data leak. Regular cloud security audits and use of tools to detect open ports could have prevented this.
- Vigilance Against Supply Chain Attacks: Attackers quickly exploited DeepSeek’s popularity by uploading fake libraries to PyPI, a software repository. This underscores the importance of verifying third-party packages. The PyPI malware incident shows that even trusted ecosystems can be poisoned, so defence in depth (like scanning dependencies for malicious code) is crucial.
- Protect API Keys and Secrets: Treat API keys, tokens, and other credentials as highly sensitive data. DeepSeek’s breach exposed API secrets in plaintext logs, which could have been used to exploit services.
- DDoS Resilience and Monitoring: When offering a public API or web service – especially one that might draw attention – invest in DDoS protection and traffic monitoring. DeepSeek’s team had to reactively cut off new users to handle the DDoS. Having rate-limiting, cloud-based DDoS mitigation, and scalable infrastructure can help absorb malicious traffic without taking the service offline. Early detection of abnormal traffic patterns is also key to mounting a quick defence against such service disruption attacks.
- Privacy Compliance and International Regulations: DeepSeek’s troubles with Italy’s Garante show that claiming exemption from laws like GDPR is a risky strategy. Tech companies must be mindful of data protection regulations in all markets they operate in. The lesson is to bake privacy compliance into the platform from the start – know what data you collect, minimise it, secure it, and be prepared to explain and justify it to both users and authorities. Otherwise, a security incident can swiftly escalate into a legal ban or investigation, compounding the damage.
Conclusion
The DeepSeek cyber attack serves as a stark reminder of the challenges in securing cutting-edge AI platforms that experience rapid growth. A perfect storm of a data breach, DDoS attack, and supply chain compromise hit DeepSeek at the height of its emergence, exposing the platform’s weaknesses in configuration, ecosystem security, and compliance.
By examining this incident’s timeline and technical details, other companies can learn to fortify their systems – from locking down databases and monitoring third-party packages to preparing for waves of malicious traffic.
Download our detailed DeepSeek Cyber Attack Timeline and Visual Summary today to learn vital lessons from this major data breach.
