Article I. Russians Get ‘Gold Medal’ for Cyber Fraud

Russians Get ‘Gold Medal’ for Cyber Fraud

BLOOMBERG

Russian hackers get a “gold medal” for fraud, but their Chinese counterparts carried out more than half of all the cybercrimes committed last year, according to Kaspersky Lab, Russia’s largest antivirus software developer.

About 52 percent of the 73 million attacks on the World Wide Web that Kaspersky recorded last year originated in China, the Moscow-based company said in its annual report Tuesday.

“Chinese cyber criminals are capable of producing so much vicious software that in the past two years absolutely all the antivirus developers have had to deal with it,” Kaspersky said.

Chinese hackers are now the world’s best, trumping those from the United States, Germany, the Netherlands and Russia, although Russians retained the “gold medal” for fraud, Kaspersky said.

Russian hackers have mastered the mass-production of web sites that play upon users’ naivety and curiosity by offering services that purport to allow access to the e-mails and text messages of friends and family members, according to Kaspersky.

One successful scam invites users to send a free text message with a short code to receive passwords for private e-mail accounts, leading to charges on the victim’s cell phone bill, Kaspersky said.

Task 1. Read the article and find the names of:

a) all countries mentioned in the article,

b) a Russian organization developing antivirus software.

Task 2. True or false?

c) Russian hackers get a “gold medal” for fraud.

d) About 25 percent of the 73 million attacks on the World Wide Web originated in China.

e) Chinese hackers are now the world’s worst.

f) Russian hackers have mastered the mass-production of web sites that play upon users’ naivety and curiosity.

Task 3. Choose the best alternatives to complete the statements.

a) a hacker is

i) a secret agent

ii) a secret user of other people’s computer system

iii) a hairdresser

b) a fraud is

i) a discussion

ii) a TV program

iii) the crime of deceiving people

c) a crime is

i) a crisis

ii) an illegal action that can be punished by law

iii) an institution

d) curiosity is

i) the desire to emigrate

ii) the desire to know about something

iii) the desire to sleep

Task 4. Match 1-6 to a)-f) to form partnerships from the article:

1. gold a) counterparts

2. Chinese b) company

3. Moscow-based c) hackers

4. Russian d) medal

5. successful e) text message

6. free f) scam

Task 5. Over to you. Are hackers “rewarded” well?

Task 6. Render the article according to the plan for rendering newspaper articles.