FBI, NSA, CISA flags Chinese AI companies for “industrial-scale” distillation of AI models of U.S. companies

The FBI, NSA, and CISA jointly released a Cybersecurity Advisory flagging Chinese AI companies DeepSeek, Moonshot AI, Alibaba, MiniMax, StepFun, and Z.AI for engaging in "industrial-scale knowledge distillation" that extracts proprietary functionalities and capabilities of U.S. frontier AI models. The agencies warn that while distillation is a legitimate technique, these companies are conducting aggressive, malicious, and targeted activities to steal restricted U.S. AI intellectual property.

Three U.S. agencies — the FBI, NSA, and CISA — issued a report flagging numerous AI companies for engaging in “systematic extraction of proprietary functionalities and capabilities of U.S. AI companies’ models through industrial-scale knowledge distillation.” “While ‘distillation’ is recognized as a legitimate and useful technique in AI research, China-based AI companies are engaging in aggressive, malicious, and targeted distillation activities at an industrial scale that extract restricted proprietary functionalities and capabilities of U.S. frontier AI models. The National Security Agency NSA , Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency CISA , and Federal Bureau of Investigation FBI hereafter referred to as the authoring agencies are releasing this joint Cybersecurity Advisory to alert organizations about these malicious activities and techniques and recommend mitigations to reduce their potential impact.” The Chinese companies include: - DeepSeek, - Moonshot AI, - Alibaba, - MiniMax, - StepFun, and - Z.AI Excerpt: DOWNLOAD THE REPORT: