Facebook and Google have made their intentions clear that they will warn their users of any government-sponsored cyber-attacks whenever they see one.
Now, just last week, Yahoo has taken this direction, promising that it will warn its users in case it detects such a happening. In a post that was posted on the company’s blog, the company was clear that it will send notifications to any user in case it suspects that their account is being targeted by a state-sponsored attacker. The information is aimed at helping users take the right step in ensuring that their information remains safe and private in light of these complex attacks.
In the recent past, Yahoo seems to be working harder than ever in a bid to revive its dwindling market in the tech world. Yahoo Messenger was unveiled in early December and now that the company is following this with a security protocol, it shows how it is determined to regain the love of the people who once revered it. Although it is coming in late, things will for sure pick up very soon.
Google started warning its Gmail users of such attacks back in 2012 and just about two months ago, Facebook also announced that it will be doing the same. With the growing insecurity on the web space and the continued demand by major governments that tech companies turn to weaker encryption methods or allow government agencies to access user conversations, there is a need for such measures to be taken to protect user privacy.
It has remained to be a mystery as far as understanding how the companies differentiate state-sponsored attacks and general hackers. Just like Google and Facebook, Yahoo says that the idea of keeping to the specifics of how this works to itself is to ensure that no other actors learn how the methods work.
Government-sponsored attacks are traditionally known to be sophisticated and usually target individuals that may be having very important or rather classified information. When any cyber-attack goes beyond the usual level of sophistication, usually, security firms will label it as a state-sponsored attack. It might still be tricky to understand how this works given that in the normal form, hackers use sophisticated means to get what they want, something that makes it even more difficult to distinguish between state and non-state hacker gangs.
Whether Yahoo is taking this direction just because its competitors already offer the service or maybe the move comes following a flurry of such attacks is still unknown. Nonetheless, it is a decent move towards ensuring user information stays private as they’d wish.
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