Facebook to notify users targeted by government sponsored hack

Facebook says it will notify users if it thinks their account has been targeted by government sponsored hacking.

Users affected by a potential hack will get a message from Facebook urging them to turn on login approvals.

Facebook says it will notify users if it thinks their account has been targeted by government sponsored hacking.

A blog post by chief security officer Alex Stamos says the social network will notify a user if it believes their account had been “targeted or compromised by an attacker suspected of 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,” Mr Stamos said in the post.

“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.”

Affected users will get a message from Facebook urging them to turn on login approvals. Once activated, people can’t access that user’s Facebook account from another device without approval.

“Whenever your account is accessed from a new device or browser, we’ll send a security code to your phone so that only you can log in,” the post said.

But Facebook says it won’t often explain why it believes the account is under attack.

“To protect the integrity of our methods and processes, we often won’t be able to explain how we attribute certain attacks to suspected attackers. That said, we plan to use this warning only in situations where the evidence strongly supports our conclusion.”

Nor has it clarified which nation-state(s) it anticipates the threats might come from: whether the concern is the US government or foreign governments habitually accused of hacking such as China.

However Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg has expressed concern about the US government’s online activity.

In a blog post in March last year, he wrote: “The internet works because most people and companies do the same. We work together to create this secure environment and make our shared space even better for the world.

“This is why I’ve been so confused and frustrated by the repeated reports of the behaviour of the US government. When our engineers work tirelessly to improve security, we imagine we’re protecting you against criminals, not our own government.

“The US government should be the champion for the internet, not a threat. They need to be much more transparent about what they’re doing, or otherwise people will believe the worst.

“I’ve called President Obama to express my frustration over the damage the government is creating for all of our future. Unfortunately, it seems like it will take a very long time for true full reform.”