DeepSeek said its newly popular app was hit with a cyber-attack on Monday, which forced the Chinese company to temporarily limit registrations. The attack came after the DeepSeek AI assistant app soared to the top of Apple’s App Store, becoming the highest rated free app in the US, and climbed high in Google’s Play Store.
On its status page, DeepSeek said it started to investigate the issue late Monday night Beijing time. After about two hours of monitoring, the company said it was the victim of a “large-scale malicious attack”. While DeepSeek limited registrations, existing users were still able to log on as usual. The app is now allowing registrations again.
DeepSeek’s app is an AI assistant similar to OpenAI’s ChatGPT chatbot. The news of the app’s ascendency in the US – and ability to edge out American rivals for a fraction of the cost – sent technology stocks tumbling on Monday. Nvidia, the AI chip maker and most valuable US company, saw its stocks plummet by 13.6% in early trading, wiping out some $500bn in market capitalization.
Read the rest of the story at The Guardian.