To every single Public Relationships crisis it goes through, Facebook tries to respond with improvements to its service, especially in terms of user privacy and information security. The most recent of these improvements was dubbed Facebook Protect, a new feature that the social media giant has begun suggesting to its users.
Some users report receiving notifications from Facebook to activate this security mechanism, which has more complex protections, no later than October 28th; otherwise their accounts will be deactivated.
The company describes Facebook Protect as a protection mechanism that emerged from the 2019 U.S. election process, enabled for candidates, election officials, political party activists and others involved in the process to adequately protect their accounts on the platform. Its main goal was to protect accounts of interest from hacking attacks aiming to the spreading of fake news and disinformation during election campaigns.
Registration in this program allows users to activate advanced security measures, including multi-factor authentication and the implementation of controls to detect potential attempts at illegitimate access to their accounts. As mentioned above, enrollment in this program was voluntary and only available to users with verified pages.
The information collected by Facebook Protect allows the platform to quickly detect any hint of unusual activity, in addition to determining whether it is a hacking attempt, based on indicators such as location of login attempts and use of non recognized devices.
“We are in permanent search of the best strategies to stay one step ahead of threat actors. While we know that it is virtually impossible to contain all threats in real time, we will try to get as close as possible to this scenario,” the Facebook Protect advisory states.
At the time of its launch, Facebook Protect was only available to users in the United States and Canada, although the platform could be preparing for the massive application of this program.
To learn more about information security risks, malware variants, vulnerabilities and information technologies, feel free to access the International Institute of Cyber Security (IICS) websites.
He is a well-known expert in mobile security and malware analysis. He studied Computer Science at NYU and started working as a cyber security analyst in 2003. He is actively working as an anti-malware expert. He also worked for security companies like Kaspersky Lab. His everyday job includes researching about new malware and cyber security incidents. Also he has deep level of knowledge in mobile security and mobile vulnerabilities.
