The director of Spain's National Cybersecurity Institute (INCIBE), Félix Juárez, issued a warning on the dangers posed by open-source Artificial Intelligence during his speech at the CyberTech forum in Tel Aviv, Israel. Addressing an audience composed of industry representatives, defense agencies, and the President of Israel, Isaac Herzog, Juárez described the Chinese AI DeepSeek as "an extremely competitive training tool" and simultaneously as "a weapon of mass destruction in cybersecurity".
DeepSeek is a China-based company that offers advanced open-source language models, such as DeepSeek-R1. Its technology has been globally praised for its power, low cost, and accessibility, although it has also raised concerns due to censorship and its potential malicious uses.
"The release of DeepSeek has shown us that this technology is now more affordable and accessible than ever. At zero cost, it provides a highly competitive AI-based training capability," Juárez pointed out from the event stage. "This represents a weapon of mass destruction in the cybersecurity realm, because anyone in the world, with very few resources, can train themselves," he emphasized.
CyberTech in Tel Aviv is one of the leading global events dedicated to cybersecurity, artificial intelligence, and digital defense. Unlike European Union countries, Israel considers cybersecurity a key part of its defense and armament industry, where companies, security services, and intelligence services share information on attacks and threats, especially against strategic enemies like Iran or Hamas.
In this context, Juárez emphasized that the proliferation of tools like DeepSeek could lead to a wave of new threats. "In the coming year, we will see an increase in the number of incidents related to generative artificial intelligence," he warned. "These types of tools enable the launch of new malware campaigns, the development of applications to destabilize systems, create fake news, and even fake bots."
Despite the alarmist tone, the director of INCIBE also mentioned the need to turn this threat into an opportunity through international cooperation. "We must promote initiatives that integrate AI into our capabilities to develop new tools against digital crime," he explained. "And this will only be possible," he continued, "if we gather resources from supercomputing, data centers, globally competitive energy production, and work together from the public and private sectors to advance faster than criminals."
During his speech, Juárez also referred to Spain's role in promoting cybersecurity within the European framework. He explained that the Next Generation fund has allowed a significant portion of its 130 billion euros to be allocated to digitalization, including the creation of a cybersecurity ecosystem. "We have enabled over half a million small businesses to access protection solutions. Many of them have been able, for the first time, to invest in research and development," he stated. Additionally, he highlighted that in Spain, "we have established 23 new university chairs in cybersecurity and invested over 100 million euros in entrepreneurship in this field."
The director of INCIBE also celebrated the appointment of the organization he heads as the national lead for the NATO DIANA program, which aims to create cybersecurity company accelerators in all NATO countries.
"It is a good example of how we can continue to invest in projects that require global partnerships," he said. He also warned about the lack of qualified personnel as one of the sector's greatest challenges. "We face a serious shortage of mathematicians, physicists, data science specialists. We must keep our technological hubs open to attract global talent and train the new candidates who will support cybersecurity in Europe."
Finally, Juárez concluded his speech with a call for joint action between Spain and Israel: "CyberTech represents a common cause for cybersecurity among industry and professionals," he affirmed.