Researchers find DeepSeek AI generates insecure code for China adversaries

By Matthew Griffin Security and Privacy 31st August 2025

WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF

As more companies use AI to generate code for them some AIs are embedding more insecurities and bugs in code that they should be – and bias might be to blame.

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Research suggests that your DeepSeek AI results can be of drastically lower quality if you trigger topics that are geopolitically sensitive or banned in China. During tests undertaken by U.S. security firm CrowdStrike, it was observed that code generated for a professed Islamic State militant group computer system contained nearly twice as many flaws as it would otherwise have had. Other potential topics included: Falun Gong, Tibet, and Taiwan, according to a new Washington Post report.

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One of the key findings, highlighted by the source, is that DeepSeek AI-generated code for a program to run an industrial control system would typically result in 22.8% of the code featuring flaws. If requested on behalf of an Islamic State project, a DeepSeek user could see that the flaw percentage rises sharply, to 42.1%.

Rather than delivering faulty code, DeepSeek would sometimes refuse to generate code for the likes of professed Islamic State backers or devotees of the spiritual movement Falun Gong. Refusals to aid those groups would occur 61% and 45% of the time, respectively. Notably, both movements are banned in China.

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However, DeepSeek’s perceived reduction of the quality of code, when it is generated for such organizations and others, has surprised some.

“That is something people have worried about – largely without evidence,” Helen Toner, from the Center for Security and Emerging Technology at Georgetown University, told the Washington Post.

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DeepSeek’s reasons behind the downgrading of AI-generated code for purported use in places like Tibet and Taiwan may be less clear-cut. But such code was also less flawed than that generated for the Islamic State, for example.

The Washington Post has sought comment from the makers of DeepSeek regarding CrowdStrike’s research findings, but has yet to get a response. It has a few theories about what might be happening, though…

One of the possibilities the source muses over is that sneakily producing flawed code is a less obvious sabotage technique, used to blunt the energies of foes. It could also provide a wider attack surface for subsequent hacking.

Matthew Griffin / About Author

Described by NASA as a "Walking Encyclopaedia of the Future" and one of the world’s most in demand keynote speakers Matthew Griffin, Founder and Futurist in Chief of the 311 Institute, a global Futures and Deep Futures advisory firm, is a multi-award winning Futurist and strategic foresight expert, author, lecturer, mentor, podcast and YouTube host.

With a distinguished career running global business units at Atos, EMC, and IBM today Matthew helps leaders and titans of industry from all over the world explore the impact of the inter sections of technology, culture, and leadership, then helps them create high performance organisations that can continuously disrupt, outpace, and outthink their competition.

15 times author of the hit series the Codex of the Future series Matthew's ability to identify, track, and explain the impacts of hundreds of emerging technologies and trends on global business, culture, and society has earned him a powerful reputation and a roster of clients that include royal households, world leaders across the G7, G20, and G77, and many of the world's most recognised and exceptional organisations including ABB, Accenture, ABN Amro, Adidas, AON, ARM, BCG, Centrica, Citi Group, Coca Cola, Deloitte, Dentons, Disney, Dow, EY, Google, KPMG, Lego, Microsoft, Legal & General, LinkedIn, Nokia, Paramount, PepsiCo, PWC, Qualcomm, RWE, Samsung, T-Mobile, UBS, Visa, WIRED, WPP and hundreds of others.

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