In 2012, Google began notifying its users if it believed those people's accounts or computers were at risk of a state-sponsored attack. Three years later, Facebook has now followed suit, the latest in a string of security-conscious measures the social network has recently enacted.

Facebook Chief Security Officer Alex Stamos announced the latest protection in a post on the site. "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," Stamos wrote. "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."

Those steps range from turning on Login Approvals (Facebook's version of two-factor authentication) to avoid being compromised in the first place to replacing their computers altogether, in the event of a confirmed attack. Stamos also clarified that Facebook will only use this warning "where the evidence strongly supports" a state-sponsored attack. Basically, if you see the message below, you have cause for serious concern.

Facebook may be a few years behind Google, but it's to date the only other major company to offer that level of alert. The move also joins other significant steps Facebook has taken to ensure user privacy and security. In June, it offered the option to share public encryption keys, to keep email notifications between the site and its users encrypted (though intra-network messages remain unencrypted). A year ago, Facebook launched a "dark web" version of itself on Tor, an important extra layer of encryption and privacy for those trying to avoid surveillance.

There's always more that could be done. But every layer of protection is important, and Facebook continues to demonstrate its willingness to add more and more.