tech2 News Staff

Facebook has now introduced a new feature allowing users to receive a notification alerting them if the company suspects attackers working in the interest of a nation-state have gained unauthorised access to their accounts.

Chief Security Officer at Facebook Alex Stamos said in a blogpost, "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."

He also added out that that the company does this because these types of attacks tend to be more advanced and dangerous than others, and they strongly encourage affected people to take actions necessary to secure all of their online accounts.

It is worth pointing out that this kind of notification does not imply that Facebook's own system has been compromised, instead the warning may suggest that either a user's computer or smartphone has possessed malware that cyber-criminals are using to gain illegal access into their accounts.

Stamos added, "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."