{"id":101045,"date":"2025-02-06T22:06:17","date_gmt":"2025-02-06T22:06:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ushopwell.com\/ublog\/deepseek-ios-app-sends-data-unencrypted-to-bytedance-controlled-servers\/"},"modified":"2025-02-06T22:06:17","modified_gmt":"2025-02-06T22:06:17","slug":"deepseek-ios-app-sends-data-unencrypted-to-bytedance-controlled-servers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ushopwell.com\/ublog\/deepseek-ios-app-sends-data-unencrypted-to-bytedance-controlled-servers\/","title":{"rendered":"DeepSeek iOS app sends data unencrypted to ByteDance-controlled servers"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<p>A little over two weeks ago, a largely unknown China-based company named DeepSeek <a href=\"https:\/\/arstechnica.com\/ai\/2025\/01\/china-is-catching-up-with-americas-best-reasoning-ai-models\/\">stunned the AI world<\/a> with the release of an open source AI chatbot that had simulated reasoning capabilities that were largely on par with those from market leader OpenAI. Within days, the DeepSeek AI assistant app climbed to the top of the iPhone App Store&#8217;s &#8220;Free Apps&#8221; category, overtaking ChatGPT.<\/p>\n<p>On Thursday, mobile security company <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nowsecure.com\/blog\/2025\/02\/06\/nowsecure-uncovers-multiple-security-and-privacy-flaws-in-deepseek-ios-mobile-app\/\">NowSecure reported<\/a> that the app sends sensitive data over unencrypted channels, making the data readable to anyone who can monitor the traffic. More sophisticated attackers could also tamper with the data while it&#8217;s in transit. Apple strongly encourages iPhone and iPad developers to enforce encryption of data sent over the wire using ATS (<a href=\"https:\/\/developer.apple.com\/documentation\/security\/preventing-insecure-network-connections\">App Transport Security<\/a>). For unknown reasons, that protection is globally disabled in the app, NowSecure said.<\/p>\n<h2>Basic security protections MIA<\/h2>\n<p>What\u2019s more, the data is sent to servers that are controlled by ByteDance, the Chinese company that owns TikTok. While some of that data is properly encrypted using transport layer security, once it&#8217;s decrypted on the ByteDance-controlled servers, it can be cross-referenced with user data collected elsewhere to identify specific users and potentially track queries and other usage.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/arstechnica.com\/security\/2025\/02\/deepseek-ios-app-sends-data-unencrypted-to-bytedance-controlled-servers\/\">Read full article<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/arstechnica.com\/security\/2025\/02\/deepseek-ios-app-sends-data-unencrypted-to-bytedance-controlled-servers\/#comments\">Comments<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p class=\"wpematico_credit\"><small>Powered by <a href=\"http:\/\/www.wpematico.com\" target=\"_blank\">WPeMatico<\/a><\/small><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A little over two weeks ago, a largely unknown China-based company named DeepSeek stunned the AI world with the release of an open source AI chatbot that had simulated reasoning capabilities that were largely on par with those from market leader OpenAI. Within days, the DeepSeek AI assistant app climbed to the top of the iPhone App Store&#8217;s &#8220;Free Apps&#8221; category, overtaking ChatGPT. On Thursday, mobile security company NowSecure reported&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[241],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-101045","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-technology"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>DeepSeek iOS app sends data unencrypted to ByteDance-controlled servers - UshopWell.com<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/ushopwell.com\/ublog\/deepseek-ios-app-sends-data-unencrypted-to-bytedance-controlled-servers\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"DeepSeek iOS app sends data unencrypted to ByteDance-controlled servers - UshopWell.com\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"A little over two weeks ago, a largely unknown China-based company named DeepSeek stunned the AI world with the release of an open source AI chatbot that had simulated reasoning capabilities that were largely on par with those from market leader OpenAI. Within days, the DeepSeek AI assistant app climbed to the top of the iPhone App Store&#8217;s &#8220;Free Apps&#8221; category, overtaking ChatGPT. On Thursday, mobile security company NowSecure reported...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/ushopwell.com\/ublog\/deepseek-ios-app-sends-data-unencrypted-to-bytedance-controlled-servers\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"UshopWell.com\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2025-02-06T22:06:17+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"UShopWell\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"UShopWell\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"1 minute\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/ushopwell.com\\\/ublog\\\/deepseek-ios-app-sends-data-unencrypted-to-bytedance-controlled-servers\\\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/ushopwell.com\\\/ublog\\\/deepseek-ios-app-sends-data-unencrypted-to-bytedance-controlled-servers\\\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"UShopWell\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/ushopwell.com\\\/ublog\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/6fd1f9e0ff932e534c86c70d5acff0fc\"},\"headline\":\"DeepSeek iOS app sends data unencrypted to ByteDance-controlled servers\",\"datePublished\":\"2025-02-06T22:06:17+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/ushopwell.com\\\/ublog\\\/deepseek-ios-app-sends-data-unencrypted-to-bytedance-controlled-servers\\\/\"},\"wordCount\":216,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/ushopwell.com\\\/ublog\\\/#organization\"},\"articleSection\":[\"Technology\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/ushopwell.com\\\/ublog\\\/deepseek-ios-app-sends-data-unencrypted-to-bytedance-controlled-servers\\\/\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/ushopwell.com\\\/ublog\\\/deepseek-ios-app-sends-data-unencrypted-to-bytedance-controlled-servers\\\/\",\"name\":\"DeepSeek iOS app sends data unencrypted to ByteDance-controlled servers - 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