After broadly expanding it during the US 2020 elections, Facebook Protect, a program designed to provide extra protection and security to high-risk users targeted by cybercriminals, is now being rolled out in more countries, including India. Facebook plans to expand the programme to nearly 50 countries by the end of 2021.
What is Facebook Protect?
First tested in 2018, Facebook Protect is a feature that will provide stronger account security protection to users at high risk of being targeted by malicious hackers. When turned on, the feature will mandate these account holders to use a two-factor authentication (2FA), particularly by using third-party authentication apps. This will significantly improve the security of the online accounts.
Who is it for?
The feature is designed for people whose accounts are at risk of cyberattacks or state-sponsored attacks. These include human rights defenders, journalists and government officials. “Facebook Protect enables additional automated defences from our systems to help protect these accounts,” Facebook’s Head of Security Nathaniel Gleicher said.
How does it work?
Users in this group will be prompted by Facebook to turn on the feature. “It also flags these accounts in our internal systems. So, we get a report about one of them or we see repeated targeting of one of them and we know there could be more at stake,” Gleicher said.
Is your account at risk?
According to Facebook, if a user gets the prompt, it means their account is considered as a high-risk profile and the user will have to turn on the feature. After approving the prompt, the user will also have to also turn on the two-factor authentication for the account if it has not been done already.
Facebook provides the prompt with a deadline. Unless approved within that time period, the user will be locked out of the account. Even if the account is locked, the user will not lose any data. The account can be accessed again after turning on 2FA and Facebook Protect feature.
Users in India
As the feature is in the process of being rolled out in India, not all users will get the prompt immediately. Facebook will bring in a process allowing high-risk users to register themselves for the feature.
“We have a journalist registration programme, for example, and a number of publications work proactively with us to make sure that their journalists are highlighted on our platform so that we can provide this additional protection,” Gleicher said.
According to Gleicher, Facebook has enabled the feature in more than 1.5 million accounts so far.
(Edited by : Shoma Bhattacharjee)
First Published: Dec 3, 2021 6:51 PM IST
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