Scammers Impersonate DeepSeek CEO, Create Accounts on X
Published on February 3, 2025
- Three fraudulent accounts that impersonated the CEO of DeepSeek and had thousands of followers were found on X.
- Over 100 new domains for phishing, credential theft, and other malicious activities have been traced by researchers.
- False reports of two tokens in the name of the China-based AI model have also been floated by cybercriminals.
Cybercriminals have created fraudulent accounts impersonating the CEO of the AI Start-up DeepSeek, Liang Wenfeng. The cloned X (formerly Twitter) accounts have thousands of followers who may get targeted by scammers with malicious websites, links, and emails among other threats.
Cybersecurity Analyst and Researcher Dominic Alvieri posted screenshots of the newly found duplicated accounts of the acclaimed Founder and CEO of the China-based AI model.
The following fraudulent accounts in the name of Wenfeng have been recorded:
- Liang Wenfeng 梁文锋 - https://x.com/Liang_Wenfengg who has over 25K followers.
- Liang Wenfeng - https://x.com/official_liangw with over 8000 followers.
- $FENG - https://x.com/LiangWen_Feng, over 36,000 followers.
Threat actors can use the cloned social media accounts to share phishing links to malicious websites that ask for personal information, make payment, create accounts and more.
This could lead to credential stuffing and further exploitation like identity theft, financial fraud, and data sale on the dark web.
Alvieri found two fraudulent DeepSeek tokens and a website with an AI agent promoting a ‘cutting edge cryptocurrency.’
In addition to the duplicated social media accounts, DeepSeek has been targeted with over a 100 fraudulent domains used for credential phishing, launching malware attacks, and hacking social media accounts.
The official website of DeepSeek recently announced being hit by a cyber attack that disrupted registration of new users.
DeepSeek frauds are growing at an alarming rate owing to its fame, growing followers and increased market value. Cybercriminals are on the lookout for users who will fall prey to their fraud.
It is imperative that users don’t subscribe to all the accounts in the name of DeepSeek CEO, employees or tokens that might sound legitimate and look for the official website by independently searching online.
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