Alex Stamos, the Chief Security Officer at Facebook, has recently unveiled the social media giant's plans to help protect suspected victims of state-sponsored targeted attacks. Facebook will now distribute new types of notifications to users if it believes that they have "been targeted or compromised by an attacker suspected of working on behalf of a nation-state."
In the example screenshot shown above, the new notification strongly recommends that a user should enable Facebook's Login Approvals feature, a form of two-factor authentication that helps to ensure that only an authorized user has access to an account.
As the Login Approvals feature is not automatically enabled if users receive this notification, they should exercise extreme caution and enable the feature in such an event as a successful targeted attack may allow an intruder to access all of their personal information stored on Facebook.
While this notification is designed to warn users of attackers, it may also indicate the presence of malware on a system. In either case, users who receive the notification should enable the Login Approvals feature and "rebuild or replace" potentially infected systems.
While the advice to rebuild or replace a potentially infected system may seem extreme, this advice—along with the notification itself—strongly suggests that the company is looking out for its users' best interests when they pertain to security.
Source: Facebook via Wired | Image: Facebook
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