- The feature was added on Saturday to the Microsoft 365 roadmap website.
- The idea behind the feature is not new. Since 2016, Microsoft began tracking nation-state hacking groups and the attacks they orchestrate against Microsoft email accounts.
- If a user is targeted or compromised in one of these attacks, Microsoft sends them an email about the attack, along with basic advice they need to take to re-secure their inbox and devices.
- Microsoft said in 2019 that it usually notifies around 10,000 users per year of nation-state attacks.
- For organizations who are customers of Microsoft’s Office 365 service, the OS maker now plans to add these notifications inside the dashboard of Microsoft Defender for Office 365, the cloud-based security platform that scans a company’s Office 365 accounts for threats.
- Besides Microsoft, which does this for Microsoft Outlook email accounts, similar alerts for nation-state attacks are also available for Yahoo accounts, public Gmail accounts, and G Suite accounts. Facebook also warns users of nation-state attacks against its social media accounts.
– Catalin Cimpanu | February 8, 2021
