New banner

When most people think of hackers they either imagine nerdy kids in their basement or Eastern European mafiosos trying to steal their money. But there’s another type of hacker out there: nation-state governments; and these are the most sophisticated and resourceful hackers. And this is why Google is updating its warning system to let users know when they might be in danger.

Old banner

Back in 2012 Google was among the first of the major technology companies to warn its users that they might be targeted by a state-sponsored attacker. That warning looks like the one above, but fewer than 0.1% of Google’s users have ever seen it. Since then ,more and more companies have jumped on board, especially after Edward Snowden’s revelation of the NSA’s spying practices and its chummy relationship with companies. Now, Microsoft, Facebook and Twitter offer similar warning to their users.

But today Google is changing the way it notifies users, transforming the older banner into a new, bigger and much clearer message. The company says that this change is important because the new warning also gives users ways to protect themselves, such as setting up two-factor authentication. For what it’s worth the banner also looks much better and is aligned with Google’s newer design language.

Hopefully none of our readers will ever get to see this banner, but in case they do, it’ll now be much clearer and a bit more useful than before.

Source and Image: Jigsaw (Google Ideas)