MANILA, Philippines – Three years after Google said it would tell users if it believed a person’s account was at risk of a state-sponsored attack, Facebook announced it was doing the same for its userbase.

In a post on Saturday, October 17, Facebook chief security officer Alex Stamos said it will notify a user if the company believes “your account has been targeted or compromised by an attacker suspected of working on behalf of a nation-state.”

Facebook opted to have this extra warning in place because of the nature of state-sponsored attacks which, Stamos wrote, “tend to be more advanced and dangerous than others.”

He encourages any affected users receiving this notification in the future “to take the actions necessary to secure all of their online accounts,” as the notification appears to be reserved for really dire circumstances “where the evidence strongly supports” the idea of a state-sponsored attacker going after a user.

Stamos further explained that “having an account compromised in this manner may indicate that your computer or mobile device has been infected with malware.” He added, “Ideally, people who see this message should take care to rebuild or replace these systems if possible.”

Facebook will also not be disclosing what methods it is using to attribute attacks, to protect the way it determines such attacks are happening. – Rappler.com

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