Google Issues New Warning for State-Sponsored Attacks Starting Tuesday, look out for an unusual warning atop your Gmail inbox, Google home page or Chrome browser. It will not mince words: "Warning: We believe state-sponsored attackers may be attempting to compromise your account or computer." Google said it planned to issue the warning anytime it picks up malicious-possibly state-sponsored-activity on a user's account or computer. How does Google know whether an attack is state-sponsored? It won't say. "We can't go into the details without giving away information that would be helpful to these bad actors, but our detailed analysis - as well as victim reports - strongly suggest the involvement of states or groups that are state-sponsored," Eric Grosse, Google's vice president of security engineering, wrote in a blog post. The announcement is timed just one week after security researchers discovered Flame, a massive, data-mining virus, had been spying on computers in the Middle East- predominantly in Iran- for at least the last four years. Researchers say they believe the Flame virus is sponsored by the same entity that commissioned Stuxnet, a virus co-sponsored by the United States and Israel, that destroyed thousands of Iranian centrifuges in 2010.