14 DAY TRIAL // Alex Stamos, Chief Security Officer at Facebook, has announced a new system put in place at the social network, which will send an alert to users when the company is detecting account hijacking attempts from known state-sponsored hacking organizations.
The notification (see image at the end of the post) was added to Facebook this past weekend, and is the company's response to the increase in state-sponsored attacks, which are starting to become more and more of a day-to-day occurrence.
The warning message shown with the notification is quite simple and urges users to activate an older Facebook feature called Login Approvals.
When turned on, this feature will send a one-time code to the user's smartphone, which the person who tries to log in must enter alongside the Facebook username and password. If access to the phone is not available, attackers won't be able to log in.
Facebook stresses that, when this notification appears, it does not mean that the Facebook account in question has been compromised, or that Facebook's servers have been hacked or are in any way insecure.
When they see this warning, Mr. Stamos advises users to check their computers and phones for malware, state-sponsored attackers being known to use various types of spyware, trojans, and infostealers to gain access to private information from their targets.
