1 Static Analysis of The DeepSeek Android App
Aimee Grice edited this page 2025-02-10 15:45:36 +08:00


I performed a static analysis of DeepSeek, forum.altaycoins.com a Chinese LLM chatbot, utilizing version 1.8.0 from the Google Play Store. The objective was to recognize possible security and privacy problems.

I've written about DeepSeek previously here.

Additional security and personal privacy concerns about DeepSeek have actually been raised.

See also this analysis by NowSecure of the iPhone variation of DeepSeek

The findings detailed in this report are based simply on static analysis. This implies that while the code exists within the app, there is no definitive proof that all of it is executed in practice. Nonetheless, the presence of such code warrants scrutiny, especially offered the growing concerns around data personal privacy, surveillance, the prospective abuse of AI-driven applications, and cyber-espionage dynamics in between international powers.

Key Findings

Suspicious Data Handling & Exfiltration

- Hardcoded URLs direct data to external servers, raising issues about user activity monitoring, such as to ByteDance "volce.com" endpoints. NowSecure identifies these in the iPhone app the other day too. - Bespoke file encryption and information obfuscation techniques exist, with indications that they might be utilized to exfiltrate user details.