David Jemmett, CEO & Founder of CISO Global

January 28, 2025

Unlike Western AI systems governed by privacy laws and ethical considerations, DeepSeek operates under a regime notorious for state-sponsored hacking, surveillance, and cyber espionage. With AI-driven automation at its disposal, China can rapidly scale its cyberattacks, embedding malware, manipulating financial markets, and eroding trust in global AI platforms.

Artificial Intelligence is no longer just an innovation: it’s a weapon. As AI systems like ChatGPT, Gemini, and Apple AI revolutionize industries, a new threat looms on the horizon: DeepSeek. Developed and deployed by China, this cutting-edge AI is not just lowering costs; it’s opening the floodgates to an era of AI-powered cyberwarfare and economic manipulation. Bloomberg recently reported that as of January 25^th, the DeepSeek mobile app has been downloaded over 1.6 million times, making it number one in the iPhone app store in several of its largest global markets.

China’s Trojan Horse in the AI Arms Race

DeepSeek is more than just an efficient AI platform. By aggressively harvesting intelligence from top AI models, including ChatGPT, Gemini, and Apple AI, China is positioning itself to dominate the AI landscape—and with it, global cybersecurity.

Unlike Western AI systems governed by privacy laws and ethical considerations, DeepSeek operates under a regime notorious for state-sponsored hacking, surveillance, and cyber espionage. With AI-driven automation at its disposal, China can rapidly scale its cyberattacks, embedding malware, manipulating financial markets, and eroding trust in global AI platforms.

AI-Powered Cybercrime: A Catastrophe in the Making

The greatest danger isn’t just AI’s ability to enhance productivity—it’s its ability to destroy. Malicious actors can now weaponize AI at unprecedented speeds:

• AI-Generated Malware: DeepSeek’s algorithms can inject undetectable malware into AI-generated files, images, and encrypted messages—evading firewalls and infiltrating global networks without raising suspicion.
• Hyper-Targeted Phishing Scams: By using AI tools like DeepSeek, threat actors can sort through troughs of data exposed in previous data breaches in moments. It allows hackers to send phishing emails so targeted to an individual, referencing specific details about their victim, that they become almost impossible to distinguish from legitimate messages.
• Data Poisoning Warfare: By corrupting AI datasets, attackers can manipulate chatbot outputs, turning trusted AI platforms into propaganda tools for misinformation and cyber sabotage.
• Financial Market Destabilization: AI-driven trading relies on real-time data, but what if that data is compromised? DeepSeek’s unchecked growth could lead to economic warfare, market crashes, and algorithmic chaos. The effects have already been felt in the global financial markets just with the news of DeepSeek’s emergence as a new AI competitor.

The Rush Toward AI Domination – At Any Cost

Just like the reckless internet boom of the 1990s, AI adoption is accelerating without proper safeguards. Companies and governments are blindly integrating AI into critical infrastructures, ignoring the glaring red flags of security vulnerabilities.

But this time, the stakes are higher. While AI can be used for harmless daily activities like editing email drafts, it’s also the preferred tool of cybercriminals and state-sponsored hacking efforts. DeepSeek is the latest tech that is giving China a dangerous advantage in today’s digital warfare.

The Question No One Is Asking: Who Controls AI’s Future?

With DeepSeek stealing intelligence from Western AI systems and embedding itself into global networks, the world is sleepwalking into an AI-driven cyberwar. When AI falls into the wrong hands, it’s not just about losing market value—it’s about losing control.

The real risk isn’t a stock decline: It’s a digital coup.

About the Author

A cybersecurity industry leader and successful entrepreneur, David Jemmett is the CEO and founder of Cerberus Sentinel, now CISO Global (NASDAQCM: CISO), a Top #25 managed cybersecurity and compliance services provider.

Mr. Jemmett has more than 35 years of executive management and technology experience in cybersecurity consulting services, healthcare, compliance, government regulations, telecommunications, and managed services. He has been intimately involved in designing, building, re-vamping, and/or managing networks and data centers worldwide.

In 2015, Jemmett founded GenResults, LLC, which is now a wholly owned member of the CISO Global family of companies. Additionally, he has served as CEO of NantCloud, LLC, a provider of secure cloud-hosted applications for healthcare customers, and CTO of NantWorks, LLC, a parent company for the “Nant” family of companies. From 2005 to 2013, Mr. Jemmett also served as founder and CEO of ClearDATA Networks Corporation, a HIPAA compliant hosting company specializing in healthcare. 

Mr. Jemmett has spoken before both the U.S. Congress and Senate Subcommittees on Telecommunications and Internet Security. He also has shared his expertise on broadband networking technologies as guest speaker on CBS, CNN, MSNBC, and CSPAN.

The post DeepSeek: The Silent AI Takeover That Could Cripple Markets and Fuel China’s Cyberwarfare appeared first on CISO Global.

*** This is a Security Bloggers Network syndicated blog from CISO Global authored by hmeyers. Read the original post at: https://www.ciso.inc/blog-posts/deepseek-the-silent-ai-takeover/