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Static analysis of the DeepSeek Android app

• mbac32768 2y ago
  tl;dr it does aggressive device fingerprinting, root detection, has anti-tampering mechanisms, bundles native code and has dynamic code loading and execution facilities. IMO, none of which should be necessary for an app like this A dynamic analysis is still needed to confirm what it actually does. I decided to do this after a researcher found obfuscated surveillance code in the web app https://apnews.com/article/deepseek-china-generative-ai-internet-security-concerns-c52562f8c4760a81c4f76bc5fbdebad0 https://apnews.com/article/deepseek-china-generative-ai-inte... NowSecure found similar not great runtime behavior in the iOS mobile app https://www.nowsecure.com/press-releases/nowsecure-urges-enterprises-to-ban-the-deepseek-ios-mobile-app/ https://www.nowsecure.com/press-releases/nowsecure-urges-ent...
  • rtsil 2y ago
    Are all of these common for Chinese apps or is DeepSeek an outlier?
    • mbac32768 2y ago
      That I can't say yet. This is the first Chinese app I've looked at, though it probably won't be the last.
    • inverted_flag 2y ago
      TikTok and DJI do similar things https://www.nullpt.rs/reverse-engineering-tiktok-vm-1 https://www.nullpt.rs/reverse-engineering-tiktok-vm-1 https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2020/07/chinese-made-drone-app-in-google-play-spooks-security-researchers/ https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2020/07/chine... Never install Chinese apps on your phone.
• asimpleusecase 2y ago
  It would be good to do this kind of analysis on apps that have more than 10 million users - but in the mean time , has someone done this analysis on TicTok?