Cyberattacks aimed at stealing American artificial intelligence technology are increasingly expanding from tech-based attacks to the exploitation of human-level vulnerabilities, with China-based actors playing a growing role.
"As the AI race has heated up, the [People的 Republic of China] has targeted the tech sector increasingly," said Matt Pearl, director of the strategic technologies program at the U.S.-based think tank Center for Strategic and International Studies.
Rather than focusing on a specific trade secret, such as hardware designs, the hackers have broadened their interest to anything that could narrow the three- to four-month AI gap with the U.S., Pearl said. That, he said, ranges from understanding a company的 product roadmap, particularly in highly competitive sectors, to identifying weaknesses in supply chains.
被指控的案件已经堆积如山。
The alleged cases are already piling up.
In June, U.S.-based cybersecurity giant CrowdStrike said Chinese entities accounted for more than half of state-sponsored intrusions targeting technology companies, especially their AI assets, in the 12 months through March 31.
American tech start-up Anthropic has also accused Chinese companies, including Alibaba, of illicit attempts to steal its AI capabilities.阿里巴巴没有回应置评请求。
American tech start-up Anthropic has also accused Chinese companies, including Alibaba, of illicit attempts to steal its AI capabilities. Alibaba did not respond to a request for comment.
Last year, U.S.-based AI content detection startup Copyleaks said the responses generated by Chinese startup DeepSeek的 R1 model resembled those produced by OpenAI的 ChatGPT nearly three-quarters of the time, suggesting the open-source Chinese model may have been trained on the U.S.-developed one.
"我们还没有看到'[在其他法学硕士,"中看到过相同的风格匹配]，Alon Yamin, Copyleaks 的首席执行官兼联合创始人说道。
"We haven't seen [the same stylistic match] in other LLMs," said Alon Yamin, CEO and co-founder of Copyleaks.
DeepSeek 和 OpenAI 没有立即回应置评请求。
DeepSeek and OpenAI did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Brian Abbott, founder and CEO of U.S.-based start-up Agentiq Capital, told CNBC in June that he believed an employee he hired from China last year was an agent of Beijing who purposely altered code and website content to prevent the company from getting venture capital funding.
Abbott alleged the employee replaced references to "ASI," or artificial superintelligence, with "fintech," a once-trending term that many investors have soured on.
该人于今年早些时候被解雇, Abbott 表示, 并且该公司向 FBI 提出了投诉。 CNBC 无法独立核实这一指控。
The individual was dismissed earlier this year, Abbott said, and the company filed a complaint with the FBI. CNBC was unable to independently verify the allegation.
"China的 economic espionage campaign is a continuing threat that costs the American economy hundreds of billions of dollars per year and puts our national security at risk," the FBI said in a statement to CNBC.
"The FBI prioritizes investigating any potential theft of US technology by foreign actors and remains unwavering in our commitment to protect the homeland."
斯坦福大学的 DigiChina 项目, 的主编 Graham Webster, 表示，将国家支持的间谍活动与个人或企业层面的活动区分开来可能很困难。
Graham Webster, editor-in-chief of Stanford University的 DigiChina Project, said distinguishing state-sponsored espionage from individual or corporate-level efforts can be difficult.
他还指出，有关中国人工智能的讨论也受到美国大公司准备进行大型首次公开募股的影响。
He also pointed out that the conversation about Chinese AI is also affected by major U.S. companies gearing up for major initial public offerings.
"[The] narrative is overtaking reality in a lot of decisions," Webster said.
"The U.S. government is trying to hold China back to some extent," he added, referring to technology export controls. "We should not be surprised that the Chinese government tries otherwise."
初创企业面临更大风险
Start-ups more at risk
Capital has been a defining driver of the AI race so far, with start-ups racing to rival tech giants or position themselves for acquisitions.
But that的 also created "cyber poverty lines" where small businesses lack the resources of large companies to defend against cyberattacks, said Cliff Steinhauer, director of information security and engagement at the non-profit National Cybersecurity Alliance.
Human vulnerabilities often pose the greater risk, Steinhauer said, particularly as attackers rely on "social engineering" tactics amplified by AI-powered content campaigns.
网络攻击还可以针对新员工或合同工来破坏系统。
Cyberattacks can also target new or contracted employees to breach systems.
"We've seen a lot of cases within our company, new employees that are joining the company, immediately they're a target of cyberattacks to get access to our AI models," Copyleaks Yamin said.他预计会看到更多这样的案例。
"We've seen a lot of cases within our company, new employees that are joining the company, immediately they're a target of cyberattacks to get access to our AI models," Copyleaks Yamin said. He expects to see more such cases.
政府和公司主导的努力也会影响启动运营成本。
Government and company-led efforts also impact start-up operating costs.
Anthropic on June 11 announced a program called Claude Corps to train 1,000 people in AI and match them with non-profits in the U.S. Meanwhile in China, policymakers have rolled out significant AI support, including free or subsidized computing power and rent-free office space for start-ups.
Isaac Stone Fish, founder and chief executive of consultancy Strategy Risks, said Beijing tends to focus more heavily on large corporations, but startups remain especially exposed since they don't necessarily have cyber expertise.
"北京'的尝试[s]在过去18个月里肯定有所增加,，因为DeepSeek的发布确实拉开了中美人工智能竞赛的序幕," Stone Fish说。
"And Beijing的 attempt[s] have certainly increased over the last 18 months, since the release of DeepSeek really kicked off the US-China AI race," Stone Fish said.
"Beijing wants to ensure that Chinese companies are at the vanguard of the global AI race," he said. "One way that it does that is by sometimes working to suppress the development of American AI companies, through supply chain restrictions, employee harassment, hacking, targeted government subsidies of copycat competitors, among other strategies."
"We've seen a lot of cases within our company, new employees that are joining the company, immediately they're a target of cyberattacks to get access to our AI models," Copyleaks Yamin said.他预计会看到更多这样的案例。
"We've seen a lot of cases within our company, new employees that are joining the company, immediately they're a target of cyberattacks to get access to our AI models," Copyleaks Yamin said. He expects to see more such cases.
For startups, balancing rapid innovation with security remains a challenge.
Abbott said the employee he hired was initially willing to work for free, and eventually received a few thousand dollars a month in addition to stock options, before the firing.
"If we paid everybody market rate, for a scrappy start-up I could never afford to do this," he said, emphasizing the "need to secure our economy of start-ups stateside."
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