# DeepSeek’s top-ranked AI app is restricting sign-ups due to ‘malicious attacks’

Source: https://www.theverge.com/2025/1/27/24353023/deepseek-ai-app-restricting-sign-ups-malicious-attacks
Kiwi News: https://news.kiwistand.com/stories/DeepSeeks-top-ranked-AI-app-is-restricting-sign-ups-due-to-malicious-attacks?index=0x6797d8e8edf6da5bf642312be4dcefd2d6355f45d78ae4c5d0e36e571a0e9e22cf81b6e2
Submitted by misha on 2025-01-27 UTC, 1 upvote, 0 comments

## Summary

DeepSeek's AI Assistant, which surged to the top of Apple's US App Store charts, is temporarily restricting new user sign-ups. An incident report page says registrations are limited "due to large-scale malicious attacks on DeepSeek's services," though the article notes it is unclear how the limits are applied. An earlier update had said only registration with a mainland China mobile phone number was supported, but that requirement was later deleted, and Verge staff were able to create accounts through Google and Apple ID sign-in. Existing users can log in as usual, according to DeepSeek.

## Article

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The ChatGPT rival initially said it was limiting new registrations to users with Chinese phone numbers.

The ChatGPT rival initially said it was limiting new registrations to users with Chinese phone numbers.

by

Jan 27, 2025, 5:14 PM UTC

Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge

Jess Weatherbed

is a news writer focused on creative industries, computing, and internet culture. Jess started her career at TechRadar, covering news and hardware reviews.

After surging to the top of Apple’s App Store charts in the US, DeepSeek’s AI Assistant is now restricting new user sign-ups. According to an incident report page, registrations are being temporarily limited “due to large-scale malicious attacks on DeepSeek’s services,” though it’s unclear how these limitations are being applied.

“Existing users can log in as usual,” DeepSeek said in its update. “Thanks for your understanding and support.” An alert banner on the DeepSeek web sign-up page says that “registration may be busy,” rather than entirely restricted, however, and encourages users to wait and “try again” if their application is unsuccessful.

Outages and performance issues were reported by DeepSeek earlier today, which prevented users from signing in or creating new accounts. That incident has now been marked as resolved, but no information has been provided about the reported attacks against DeepSeek’s chatbot app. It was previously thought that DeepSeek’s systems may be under strain due to a huge influx of new users downloading the app, which is said to rival Western AI services like OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Anthropics Claude.

An earlier update said that “only registration with a mainland China mobile phone number” is currently supported in an attempt to “ensure continued service.” The specific requirement for Chinese numbers has since been deleted; however, I and other Verge staff have been able to successfully create new accounts via sign-in options for Google and Apple ID. Email registration is also still currently listed as available on the web-based DeepSeek signup page.

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Jess Weatherbed

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