Skip to main content

The new kind of notification that you never want to see on your Facebook

File photo of the Facebook website displayed on a laptop computer.Facebook just launched a new kind of notification that will warn users if it suspects their account has been targeted by an attacker working on behalf of a nation-state.
"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," Alex Stamos, Facebook's chief security officer, writes in the company's blog post about the news.
"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."
Facebook says that if a user sees this notification, it's not an indication that Facebook itselfhas been hacked in any way.
Rather, it could indicate that that person's computer or smartphone has malware on it that bad actors are using to seek access to their accounts.
Here's what the notification will look like on desktop:
Facebook Security
Facebook says it can't explain how it attributes attacks to nation-states versus smaller-scale hackers, because it has to "protect the integrity" of its methods and processes, but promises that it will only use that warning notification "where the evidence strongly supports our conclusion."
In other words, if you get that Facebook notification, you should take it seriously. The company recommends rebuilding or replacing any system that may have been infected by malware, as well as turning on login approvals.
The chilling reality of the potential destruction of state-sponsored cyber-attacks rocketed into the public eye late last year when North Korea attacked Sony Entertainment, shutting down the company's computer systems and revealing troves of personal information from employees.
Talking about the hack at the recent Vanity Fair conference, assistant attorney general for national security in the Department of Justice John Carlin said that attacks by nation-states can be brutal, because if they want to get in, they'll get it.
"There’s no wall high enough to keep a determined nation state out of your computer systems," he said.
But, he said, noticing an attack early and moving fast is crucial. That's Facebook's attitude when releasing this new notification, too.
"We hope that these warnings will assist those people in need of protection," Stamos writes, "And we will continue to improve our ability to prevent and detect attacks of all kinds against people on Facebook."

Source : http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/itinsider/the-new-kind-of-notification-that-you-never-want-to-see-on-your-facebook/ar-AAfAqIG

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The First 10 People Who Sign up On Facebook

The First 10 People Who Sign up On Facebook 10. Zach Bercu sphotos-b.xx.fbcdn.net “The past eight years have been extraordinary,” Bercu said. A graduate of Emory’s medical school, Bercu spent a year in Israel, where he became fluent in Hebrew. He completed his residency in New York, part of the last intern class at St. Vincent’s, whose “hospital infrastructure crumbled around me,” he remembered of the facility, which closed in 2010. Now a resident at Mount Sinai in radiology, Bercu plans to complete a fellowship in interventional radiology, a form of “micro-surgery.” From his undergraduate years, “whether through Facebook or in person,” Bercu says he “took with me some of the greatest friendships one could have.” 9. Manuel Antonio Aguilar publicogt.com Aguilar calls himself a social entrepreneur “focused on the base o...
Post a Comment
Read more

Your current security settings do not allow this file to be downloaded' in Internet Explorer

I faced the below issue while i am trying to download the software from one the VM machine that i am Working for my project in my office. Then u found the below solution. Instructions You can receive the following message when trying to download a file in Internet Explorer: ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Security Alert Your current security settings do not allow this file to be downloaded. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- To remove this message and allow downloading of files, follow the steps based on your operating system. Windows 10 Click Search, search for Control Panel, and then click Control Panel. Click Network and Internet > Internet Options. On the Security tab, click Custom level. Scroll down in the list to the Downloads section, and set all download options to Enabled. Click OK. Windows 8 Right-click i...
Post a Comment
Read more

Do not automatically mark mail as read in Outlook

You may know already, but few of my friends facing the below confusion , so thought of sharing with you. When quickly going through my emails, often we haven’t actually really read the emails but Outlook already marks them as read. This is quite confusing unless we mark them as unread again which takes more time and defeats the purpose of quickly going through our emails. The options for how and when Outlook should mark emails as read can be found in; Outlook 2007 and previous Tools-> Options…-> tab Other-> button Reading Pane… Outlook 2010, Outlook 2013 and Outlook 2016 tab View-> Reading Pane-> Options… The default is set to mark items as read when you select another email. When you disable this option, all mails remain as unread unless you manually mark it as read or double click the message to open it in its own window. Once you uncheck  “mark items as read when selection changes”, the mail will change to read only w...
Post a Comment
Read more