DeepSeek R1 data exfiltration — Chinese AI model sends data to China-linked servers
Date: 2025-01
Affected: DeepSeek R1 users globally — conversation data sent to China-linked servers
Attack vector: data-exfiltration
Category: real-world
Severity: Critical

Security researchers discovered that DeepSeek's R1 model, which rapidly gained popularity globally, transmitted user conversation data to servers linked to China Mobile, a Chinese state-owned telecommunications company. This raised national security concerns in multiple countries. Italy, South Korea, and Australia banned or restricted DeepSeek on government devices. The US Navy prohibited its use. The incident highlighted data sovereignty risks when using AI models from adversarial jurisdictions.

Impact: Multi-country government bans; national security investigations; data sovereignty regulatory precedent

Mitigations:
Data flow analysis for all third-party AI services before deployment
Data sovereignty assessment for AI models from foreign jurisdictions
Network monitoring for unexpected data transmission to foreign servers
Government and enterprise AI procurement policies restricting adversarial-jurisdiction models

Architectural layers (MAESTRO):
label: Deployment & Infrastructure
notes: Data transmitted to servers in adversarial jurisdiction without user knowledge
role: origin
label: Data Operations
notes: User conversation data exfiltrated to China-linked infrastructure
role: propagation
label: Security & Compliance
notes: National security risk; multi-country bans on government devices
role: impact