A cybersecurity firm has found an errant public-facing DeepSeek database full of lines that appear to include chat history, among other sensitive internal elements, according to ”cpomagazine.com”.
Though the researchers ethically disclosed the database leak to DeepSeek and it was closed up before being made public, their report notes that it was so easy to find that there is a good chance others were able to get to it first.
The database leak appears to be a misconfiguration of a ClickHouse repository to allow for unauthorized HTTP access via arbitrary SQL queries. The issue was discovered via scanning by the cybersecurity firm Wiz, who said that attackers could have taken full control over database operations but that there is no other clear sign of abuse at this time.
That said, the database was hosted at deepseek.com and required only standard scanning of the company’s publicly accessible domains to discover. Therefore, it is very possible that Wiz was not the first on the scene. The database leak is composed of over one million log entries dating from January 6 of this year, including plaintext chat history records and API keys. The researchers did not engage in additional intrusive queries but did note that this access made it possible to extract any local files and plaintext passwords that might be present. An attacker could do all of this via ClickHouse’s HTTP interface, without needing credentials or even particularly advanced knowledge.
The database leak incident comes as DeepSeek is experiencing an amazing period of rapid success, supplanting ChatGPT as the most-downloaded app on some stores, but has also been tripped up by several other security issues in quick succession. One of those is an apparent DDoS attack, which forced the company to bar new registrations for some time.
DeepSeek has impressed with its technical capability and resource requirements, performing about as well as its best generative chat rivals while seemingly taking much less in the way of compute power to function. Where the company is vulnerable is in its security record thus far, and the database leak and chat history exposure is another negative entry in the ledger.
Aside from the leak of chat history, the full scope of which is still not entirely clear, the app is also in the realm of TikTok and Temu in raising concerns about what user data is being packed off to China and what access the Chinese government has to it. Individual state governments, such as that of Texas, and individual federal agencies, such as NASA, have already banned the app for employee and official use in recent days.
DeepSeek reportedly cut off access to the database leak within an hour of being notified, but it remains unclear (and essentially impossible to tell) how long it was open before that and who else might have come across it. Aside from whatever might have been in the chat history, prior intruders might have extracted keys, passwords and sensitive information that grant further access to the company’s systems. This could trigger more immediate international regulatory scrutiny of the company; it is already in trouble with Italy’s data protection authority Garante, which has initiated an investigation into how it handles personal data. Garante similarly suspended ChatGPT from the country for a short period for similar reasons in 2023. The app is also under investigation by the Irish Data Protection Commission (DPC).
Read the full art. on ”cpomagazine.com”.
Related art.:
– 05.02.2025: Deepseek Disappears From App Stores in Italy as Data Protection Authority Investigates – ”cpomagazine.com”
– 29.01.2025: ”Chinese AI DeepSeek R1 is a Privacy and Security Nightmare” – ”stiridigitale.ro”
Foto: ”freepik.com”
