DHS bars DeepSeek products from US federal civilian agencies

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has ordered federal civilian agencies to stop using DeepSeek products and to remove them from government systems. The ban also covers products from the Chinese company's affiliates, as well as third-party services built on DeepSeek technology.

DeepSeek (Hangzhou DeepSeek Artificial Intelligence Co., Ltd) develops large language models and offers a chatbot, API services, and models suited to coding and reasoning tasks. Its tools became hugely popular early on, but reports of security risks soon followed, along with concerns that Chinese authorities could gain access to users' conversations.

What agencies must do

The agency framed this as a formal order. Agencies must immediately exclude the covered products from procurement, including approved-product lists and purchasing marketplaces, and remove them from their IT systems — or seek an exception. Exception requests must be filed within 60 days of the order's issuance, with a justification and proposed risk mitigations. CISA will review these and issue written approvals or denials.

The order applies only to federal civilian agencies within DHS's authority and is not a blanket ban on private or consumer use.

The reasoning

DHS says the move stems from concerns that the Chinese government could access DeepSeek infrastructure, collect personal information and track users, and potentially transfer sensitive government data to China.

The document also flags the risk of malware in DeepSeek models, citing a February 2025 report by NowSecure that identified vulnerabilities in the DeepSeek iOS app. The researchers found unencrypted data transmissions, weak encryption algorithms, insecure local storage, user fingerprinting risks, and data sharing with ByteDance — the Chinese giant behind TikTok.

The order was published in the Federal Register, a day after appearing on Public Inspection. For agencies unable to comply due to internal capability restrictions, CISA will provide the necessary technical assistance.

Source: Bleeping Computer