Facebook: Turn On Login Approvals To Guard Against State-Sponsored Attacks

Facebook has recently announced that it will start notifying users if their account has been targeted or compromised by an attacker suspected of acting on behalf of the nation-state.

The social networking giant issued “Notifications for targeted attacks” last week and said that security of people’s accounts is paramount for Facebook, which is why it constantly monitors potentially malicious activities.

“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”, said Alex Stamos is the Chief Security Officer at Facebook.

It further noted that the state-sponsored attacks tend to be “more advanced and dangerous” than others. However, as to how Facebook attributes certain attacks to suspected attackers, Stamos said that it would not be disclosed in order to protect the integrity of the methods and processes.

“We plan to use this warning only in situations where the evidence strongly supports our conclusion”, said Stamos. “We hope that these warnings will assist those people in need of protection, and we will continue to improve our ability to prevent and detect attacks of all kinds against people on Facebook.”

Facebook advises users to turn on Login Approvals as a preventative measure against potential attacks. Login approvals are a security feature which, when turned on, will ask to enter a special security code (sent to user’s mobile phone) each time a user tries to access Facebook account from a new computer, phone or browser.