Shares: scammers started selling fake DeepSeek papers
Fraudsters have created phishing sites to buy shares in the Chinese company DeepSeek before it goes public, F.A.C.C.T. told Izvestia. Thus, the attackers use the popularity of the sensational neural network, promising high returns. In fact, DeepSeek is a non-public organization and has not yet announced plans to place shares on the stock exchange. In addition, scammers offer to invest money in the token of the same name. What you can lose when trying to invest and whether you can still earn on the hype around the Chinese AI - in the material "Izvestia".
How to capitalize on the popularity of DeepSeek
Fraudsters have begun to sell fake shares DeepSeek, said "Izvestia" senior analyst Digital Risk Protection company F.A.C.C.T.. Maria Sinitsyna. A resource appeared on the Internet, in the domain of which the name of the neural network is used, it offers to buy securities under the pretext of the imminent completion of the "last round of financing" and the company's IPO.
"Izvestia" familiarized with the site. There they promise to provide "100% of profits and more". To buy shares, it is proposed to fill out a form to contact a broker. However, after transferring the money, it will not be possible to withdraw it back.
- We know from open sources that DeepSeek is a non-public company, but this is unlikely to stop the activity of investment scammers. We expect that the number of such "profitable" offers from fraudsters will grow on the wave of interest in the Chinese neural network, - said Maria Sinitsyna.
Alexander Saksagansky, Director of Business Development at ITD Group, also told Izvestia that such resources are aimed at swindling money. However, he emphasized: it is not known about the plans of this company regarding the initial public offering of shares or cryptocurrencies.
F.A.C.C.T. also discovered resources that, under the pretext of pre-ordering the DeepSeek token, offer users to link their cryptocurrency wallet. However, the outcome of such actions is the complete loss of access to the digital currency that is in it, Maria Sinitsyna warned.
Also appeared fake tokens DeepSeek: such a virtual coin can only be bought in the hope of its further growth, but it is impossible to sell, said the expert. Under the pretext of free coin distribution , users are offered to participate in the campaign and authorize on the resource through their cryptocurrency wallet, and then conduct a transaction - at this point, malware is installed on the device, which allows cybercriminals to steal savings discreetly.
Attackers quite often use fake sites, including those mimicking real players, to deceive citizens - they always monitor the news agenda and react to it, SafeTech CEO Denis Kalemberg added. Investing in non-existent stocks, as well as other alleged investments, is a very common technique.
- Such fake projects are dangerous to lose money. And when it comes to investments, scammers can receive substantial sums from gullible victims - up to hundreds of thousands of rubles and even more. It all depends on the victim's solvency, greed and degree of "warming up"," added Vladimir Ulyanov, head of Zecurion's analytical center.
What is DeepSeek
On January 20, the Chinese offered the DeepSeek R1 AI model, which almost instantly became a hit. The neural network is at least comparable to the world's best in terms of analysis quality, but it is dozens of times cheaper. The Chinese needed 14 times less money ($5.5 million) and 20-30 times less computing power to develop it than ChatGPT: it took only 60 days to train the neural network, and it was conducted under conditions of restrictions on the supply of AI chips to China.
The launch of the startup from China led to the collapse of quotes of technology companies in the U.S. on January 27. The shares of graphics processor manufacturer Nvidia plummeted the most - by 17%, due to which the company lost almost $600 billion of market capitalization for the day. This is an anti-record in the history of world finance. In addition, the securities of one of the largest IT-companies in the world Oracle Corp. and Taiwanese TSMC (the leading manufacturer of microchips) fell by 13%. Arista Networks lost 22%, Broadcom - 17.4%, and Micron Technology - 11%.
However, it is now impossible to capitalize on the wave of hype around DeepSeek through direct investments in this company, emphasized Freedom Finance Global analyst Vladimir Chernov. It was possible to inject funding into this startup at an early stage, i.e. through venture investments. But now it is necessary to wait for the company's listing on the stock market and initial public offering on the trading floor, so that it would be possible to buy securities.
- It cannot be ruled out that there will be an additional round of financing in this startup even before the IPO, so the opportunity for venture capital investment may still present itself. There is also a possibility of a Pre-IPO, before the initial public offering, which will also give an opportunity to buy shares of the company even before it starts trading on stock exchanges," the expert explained.
However, according to him, DeepSeek's new product has caused a wave of hype in the AI market in general, so now there is an opportunity to make money by investing in securities of other companies in the industry. Or even "playing down" the share price of advanced microchip makers - Nvidia, TSMC or Intel. Most likely, they will become cheaper as the Chinese neural network works on weaker devices.
Russian players now have closed access to Western platforms, but Russian citizens can still take the opportunity to invest in mutual funds that invest in AI-related companies, the expert summarized.
If we talk about projects that allegedly can bring multiple profits, the main principle here is simple: trust, but check, or better - do not trust anyone, said Kai Mikhailov, head of information security at iTPROTECT. This is how one should approach the sale of DeepSeek securities and tokens of the same name on the Internet.
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