Cybersecurity

Google wants to reassure you about government-backed hackers

Tess Townsend
WATCH LIVE
PerimeterX’s live dashboard shows hackers cracking passwords in real time.
Source: CNBC

Google wants to reassure users about the warnings it issues about government-backed hackers.

The company hasn't changed anything about its policies or its practices, but Google wanted to remind its users in a blog post how the warnings work.

Some context: Since the presidential election, journalists have reported receiving messages from Google notifying them that "government-backed hackers may be trying to steal your password."

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The Atlantic's Julia Ioffe and Vox's Ezra Klein, both political journalists, reported receiving the message in November.

Another batch of folks, many of them journalists, raised concerns on Twitter this week. The timing coincides with an investigation into possible links between the campaign of President Donald Trump and the Russian government.

@jonathanchait From Russia With Love

@colincookman Has anyone written up yesterday's (as far as I can tell very broad) attack on progressive targets? (It's not just high profile media types)

@GlennKesslerWP @RyanLizza I got one last night too.

@mattyglesias That sounds bad

Google started its practice of warning users of government-backed hackers in 2012.

"An extremely small fraction of users will ever see one of these warnings, but if you receive this warning from us, it's important to take action on it," the company wrote in Friday's blog post, which links to security resources for users.

Don't get hacked!

By Tess Townsend, Re/code.net.

CNBC's parent NBCUniversal is an investor in Recode's parent Vox, and the companies have a content-sharing arrangement.