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| Sample of the newly launched notification. |
Don’t ignore a notification on Facebook by the Facebook which warns its users that their accounts have been targeted or compromised by an attacker suspected of working on behalf of a nation-state.
Along with other emotions, Facebook has recently launched the notification which warns the user if it finds his/her Facebook account has been targeted by an attacker working on behalf of a nation-state.
“Starting today, we will notify you if we believe your account has been targeted or compromised by an attacker suspected of working on behalf of a nation-state,” Alex Stamos, chief security officer at Facebook, said on October 17.
He added, “While we have always taken steps to secure accounts that we believe to have been compromised, we decided to show this additional warning if we have a strong suspicion that an attack could be government-sponsored. We do this because these types of attacks tend to be more advanced and dangerous than others, and we strongly encourage affected people to take the actions necessary to secure all of their online accounts.”
The company has also clarified that the warning is not related to any compromise of Facebook's platform or systems, and that having an account compromised in this manner may indicate that users’ computers or mobile devices have been infected with malware.
“Ideally, people who see this message should take care to rebuild or replace these systems if possible,” the security officer said.
However, at this point, the Facebook is still not able to explain how they attribute certain attacks to suspected attackers, in order to protect the integrity of our methods and processes.
“We plan to use this warning only in situations where the evidence strongly supports our conclusion. We hope that these warnings will assist those people in need of protection, and we will continue to improve our ability to prevent and detect attacks of all kinds against people on Facebook,” he added.
