Yahoo To Warn Users Of State Sponsored Hacking

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Yahoo is now starting to warn users if they’ve been targeted by state-sponsored hackers, following similar moves by Google, Facebook, and Twitter.

The announcement came from the company’s newly appointed chief information security officer, Bob Lord, who wrote in a blog post: “We’ll provide these specific notifications so that our users can take appropriate measures to protect their accounts and devices in light of these sophisticated attacks.”

Targeted users will be notified by Yahoo’s security team, the so called “Paranoids,” who will instruct them to perform “specific actions” to ensure the security of their accounts.

Yahoo has been trying to beef up the security of it services, in a move initiated by Lord’s predecessor, Alex Stamos, who has now left to work at Facebook. Security measures offered to users now include two-factor authentication and verifying that account recovery information is recent and correct.

Yahoo is following in the footsteps of other tech giants. Google introduced its own state-sponsored attack notification system in 2012.

Facebook also recently announced a similar scheme, though the company is reluctant to inform users exactly how they were targeted.

Last month, Twitter informed several users that their accounts were targeted by state-sponsored hackers.

In his announcement, Lord said would go a similar route.

“In order to prevent the actors from learning our detection methods, we do not share any details publicly about these attacks,” said Lord. “However, rest assured we only send these notifications of suspected attacks by state-sponsored actors when we have a high degree of confidence.”