We received a warning from @twitter today stating we may be “targeted by state-sponsored actors” pic.twitter.com/oZm83eVFC5
— coldhak (@coldhakca) December 11, 2015
It seems that Twitter has recently began implementing a feature that would warn users that they “may have been targeted” by a state sponsored cyberattack.
According to these tweets, Twitter has begun sending e-mails to users whose accounts were suspected to be targeted by state-sanctioned cyberattacks aimed at acquiring the user’s e-mail address, network connections and phone numbers. The keyword here is suspected, as it is completely possible that this is merely a false alarm.
Besides giving a warning, the e-mail would also include advice on how to protect your identity online, such as using the Tor browser.
Twitter isn’t the only one alerting their users if they’ve been targeted by actors suspected of working for the government’s behalf as Google and Facebook have implemented this security feature not too long ago.
Currently, it is not known how Twitter detects these attacks and if it will apply to user accounts outside of the United States. Whatever the case, it is still a good move to warn users about it despite the possibility of this move raising unnecessary paranoia.
Judging by the way Malaysian politics is shaping out these days, you may probably see more of these notifications sometime in the near future.