Trojans disguised as AI: cybercriminals exploit DeepSeek’s popularity


Among the most significant events in the AI world in early 2025 was the release of DeepSeek-R1 – a powerful reasoning large language model (LLM) with open weights. It’s available both for local use and as a free service. Since DeepSeek was the first service to offer access to a reasoning LLM to a wide audience, it quickly gained popularity, mirroring the success of ChatGPT.

Naturally, this surge in interest also attracted cybercriminals. While analyzing our internal threat intelligence data, we discovered several groups of websites mimicking the official DeepSeek chatbot site and distributing malicious code disguised as a client for the popular service.

Read more…
Source: Kaspersky


Sign up for our Newsletter


Related:

  • Emerging APT Mounts Mass iPhone Surveillance Campaign

    March 26, 2020

    A recently discovered, mass-targeted watering-hole campaign has been aiming at Apple iPhone users in Hong Kong – infecting website visitors with a newly developed custom surveillance malware. The bad code – the work of a new APT called “TwoSail Junk” – is delivered via a multistage exploit chain that targets iOS vulnerabilities in versions 12.1 ...

  • Hacking isn’t canceled: Chinese group attacked Citrix and Zoho during coronavirus lockdown

    March 25, 2020

    A prolific state-backed Chinese cyber espionage operation started 2020 with one of its largest hacking campaigns – even though the coronavirus lockdown in China appeared to have an impact on the group’s output. The global operation by hacking group APT 41 – widely believed to linked to the Chinese government – targeted businesses in telecoms, manufacturing, healthcare, defence, ...

  • WildPressure APT targets industrial-related entities in the Middle East

    March 24, 2020

    In August 2019, Kaspersky discovered a malicious campaign distributing a fully fledged C++ Trojan that we call Milum. All the victims we registered were organizations from the Middle East. At least some of them are related to industrial sector. Our Kaspersky Threat Attribution Engine (KTAE) doesn’t show any code similarities with known campaigns. Nor have ...

  • Monitoring ICS Cyber Operation Tools and Software Exploit Modules To Anticipate Future Threats

    March 23, 2020

    There has only been a small number of broadly documented cyber attacks targeting operational technologies (OT) / industrial control systems (ICS) over the last decade. While fewer attacks is clearly a good thing, the lack of an adequate sample size to determine risk thresholds can make it difficult for defenders to understand the threat environment, ...

  • Hackers breach FSB contractor and leak details about IoT hacking project

    March 20, 2020

    Russian hacker group Digital Revolution claims to have breached a contractor for the FSB — Russia’s national intelligence service — and discovered details about a project intended for hacking Internet of Things (IoT) devices. The group published this week 12 technical documents, diagrams, and code fragments for a project called “Fronton.” Read more… Source: ZDNet  

  • Developing Story: Coronavirus Used in Malicious Campaigns

    March 20, 2020

    The coronavirus disease (COVID-19) is being used in a variety of malicious campaigns including email spam, BEC, malware, ransomware, and malicious domains.  As the number of those afflicted continue to surge by thousands, campaigns that use the disease as a lure likewise increase. Trend Micro researchers are periodically sourcing for samples on coronavirus-related malicious campaigns. This report also includes ...