Chinese Hackers- Improve Your English Vocabulary with the News.

Today, you'll learn English with the news. We'll read a news article together on how Chinese hackers targeted important institutions in the US like the Senate, NASA, and hospitals. Welcome back to JFORCE English. Of course, I'm Jennifer. Now, let's get started. Our headline, US says Chinese hackers targeted Senate, NASA, hospitals, and more. In news headlines, they often omit words that are required grammatically to make the headline as short, as concise as possible. In this headline, there are two articles missing. Do you know what those two articles are and where they should be placed? Hopefully, you instantly said, Jennifer, of course, it's the US, the United States. And the other is, it's not Senate, it's the Senate. So, when you're learning proper names, the names of certain touristy places, for example, you have to learn if it's the Eiffel Tower, it is, or Central Park, it is. So, in this case, it's the Senate. Our main verb here is target, which of course is conjugated in the past simple. Because the verb ends in a T and it's a regular ED, we'll pronounce it as that extra syllable, targeted. And notice that T sound is on the next syllable, targeted, targeted, which in natural pronunciation, I will turn that T into a softer D, did, did, targeted, targeted. Now, that's the active form because it's the hackers, which is the noun that represents people who hack. And in this case, it's specifically Chinese people who hack. So, they targeted these locations. This would be very commonly said in the passive voice, when you want to focus on the thing or the person being targeted, not the person doing the targeting. So, let's just say I wanted to take one of them, the Senate. How would I turn that into the passive voice with our verb? Well, hopefully, you know, you start with the object of the active becomes the subject. The Senate was targeted because this is in the past simple. So, our verb to be needs to be in the past simple and it has to be conjugated with the subject, third person singular. This is always in the ED form in the passive voice. The Senate was targeted and then if you want to go on, you would include by Chinese hackers and you might add according to the U.S. because it says U.S. says. I change it to according to the U.S., but you could also just keep it as the U.S. says to match exactly. There was no need to change it to according to. Don't worry about taking these notes. I summarize everything in a free lesson PDF. You can find the link in the description. Now, let's keep reading. Federal officials on Wednesday announced they had disrupted a years-long Chinese hacking campaign. Here, notice we have all Chinese hacking campaign. So, before we saw hacking as the noun, hackers, people who hack, but the verb is hack, to hack, to illegally enter a system, a computer system in order for illegal activity, to steal something, to gain information you shouldn't have. So here, hacking, this is an adjective. It describes the campaign. You could absolutely see this as a verb conjugated in ING. For example, they are hacking my computer right now. Hopefully, you don't have to say that. But in this case, it's an adjective that modifies campaign. What type of campaign? Now, all Chinese hacking campaign, a years-long. So here, we have years, which is plural, and then we have long. Years-long is also an adjective. It describes the campaign. So, we have all campaign, years-long, Chinese, hacking, all three of those words give more information about the campaign. Years-long is an adjective that means lasting for many years, lasting for several years, a years-long. Make sure in pronunciation, you get that S, a years-long, years-long, years-long. Let's read this again. Federal officials on Wednesday announced they had disrupted to prevent something. This is very common in weather. For example, the snow disrupted our flight. It prevented our flight from happening as planned. They had disrupted a years-long Chinese hacking campaign that compromised or targeted several U.S. institutions. So here, U.S. does not have the because U.S. describes institutions. The noun is institutions. U.S. is an adjective that describes what type of institutions. Adjectives don't take articles. The noun takes the article, but here it's in the plural form, so you wouldn't use an article. Several U.S. institutions, including NASA, the Federal Reserve, so notice this requires the Federal Reserve, and even the Senate, but you already know that one, that it requires the, and even the Senate. Are you enjoying this lesson? If you are, then I want to tell you about the Finally Fluent Academy. This is my premium training program where we study native English speakers from TV, movies, YouTube, and the news, so you can improve your listening skills of fast English, expand your vocabulary with natural expressions, and learn advanced grammar easily. Plus, you'll have me as your personal coach. You can look in the description for the link to learn more, or you can go to my website and click on Finally Fluent Academy. Now let's continue with our lesson. The Department of Justice said in a statement, so a statement is an official communication. It could be written, or it could be verbal as well. Said in a statement, it had seized, so if the government, or the police, the authorities seize something, it means they take control of something, but they have the legal authority to do that. If other people seize something, but they don't have the legal authority, then you wouldn't use the verb seize, you would use the verb steal, so that's the difference between a word choice. It could change the meaning. The government seizes, thieves steal. Said in a statement, it has seized internet domains used by two hacking platforms, so again, hacking is an adjective. Perhaps you could say two hackers, but that would mean one hacker, me, one other hacker, my husband, two hackers. We are not hackers, but a platform that could represent a group, so each group could have 20, 30, 40, hundreds of individual hackers, so that's probably why they didn't say two hackers, because it's the platforms, two hacking platforms, platforms that exist to hack, so again, this is an adjective, it describes the platform. Two hacking platforms called Qscan and QtRouter that were created and operated by a Chinese state-sponsored group, so again, we have a group, and then this gives more information about the type of group, Chinese state-sponsored, sponsored by the state, which represents the government. Now, remember, this is according to a Department of Justice, DOJ statement. It's very common to refer to this as simply the DOJ. If you ever hear that, oh, the DOJ, the DOJ, that's the Department of Justice. Let's keep reading. The platforms, remember, those were the hacking groups. They're just referring to them as platforms. The platforms were used to target U.S. critical infrastructure and other sensitive networks. So here, notice we have two adjectives. Critical, meaning extremely important, perhaps for our functioning daily lives, such as electricity, so that could be critical infrastructure, extremely important. Sensitive networks, that could be a computer network, and it's sensitive because it has every citizen's passport number or every citizen's date of birth and social insurance number or personal identifier information, so that could be why it's sensitive. So we refer to sensitive information, such as your credit card number, your date of birth, things like that could be considered sensitive because hackers can use that information. FBI Director Kash Patel said tools were used, so what do you notice about this? Tools were used by Chinese government actors. Well, this is an example of the passive voice, and often when you hear news stories, it's common to hear the passive voice because they focus more on the action being done rather than the subject doing the action. It could be because they don't know who the subject is, it hasn't been identified yet, the police haven't solved that crime, or it's more important just to focus on the action. So it is very common in the news or written form to see the passive voice. Tools were used by Chinese government actors to hide the origin of their attacks. So the origin, where is the attack coming from? It could be as simple as what country it's coming from, what state it's coming from, if they are located in the US, or if they know the city, even if they know the small neighborhood, what specific house, they might know the house, what specific room in the house. So whether we're going broad, worldwide, or whether we're being very specific, just depends on how much information they already have. Let's look at this in the active voice, It's not that common to use the name actors. Of course, you know that in the film industry, in Hollywood, Tom Holland, Brad Pitt. In this case, of course, it does not mean Hollywood, it means people or groups, that's it. So it's not very commonly used. Chinese government actors used tools. So it's simply the verb in the past simple, to use, used. Used tools to hide the origin of their attacks. So that's the active voice. And we had another example of passive. I'm sure there's many more, I'm not reviewing all of them, but we have the exact same thing. The platforms were used. So remember the hacking platforms, the platforms that the hackers use to hack, the platforms were used to target US critical infrastructure. So this is also in the passive voice. So as an exercise, you can pause the video and put this in the active voice, or you can use the free lesson PDF to do that after and look for all instances of the passive voice. The DOJs, remember Department of Justice, the DOJ's announcement, before they use statement, remember I said a statement is an official announcement. It could be verbal, it could be written. The DOJ's announcement did not specify if anybody had been charged. So anybody, people, so you could replace this with any hackers, if you wanted to identify them as such. If anybody had been charged, charged with a crime. If you're charged, it means that the police officially say you're under arrest because you did this. And of course they have to prove it innocent until proven guilty, but still you're charged. The accusation has been made. Had been charged or apprehended. Apprehended means taken into custody or taken into some sort of location where they are not allowed to leave until the matter has been resolved. Until they either prove that they are not hackers or involved in any criminal activity or some sort of arrangement is made. Charged or apprehended in relation to the hacking. The hacking. So here, this is actually being used as a noun. The hacking. And I know it's a noun because you would never put the in front of a verb. So this is the gerund functioning as an object, so it's a noun. The hacking. And the extent of what has been compromised. The extent of what has been compromised. The extent just means how much. So if you were in a car accident, you would have to report on the extent of the damage. How much damage is there? So you would have to provide all of that information to your insurance. The extent of what has been compromised. Remains unclear. So they don't know how much has been compromised. Because remains unclear is a more formal way of saying I don't know. Or they don't know. So if you wanted to sound more formal, as you said I don't know, you could say the solution remains unclear at the moment. However, I'm confident I will provide the answer in the near future. That's a very fancy way of saying I don't know. I don't know. It remains unclear. We often use this more with the cause of something when you're not directly involved. I certainly wouldn't use this if someone asked me, oh, what was that Italian restaurant you really liked? The name remains unclear. You wouldn't use it in that context. More when you're trying to identify the cause of something that doesn't just rely on a fact or a name. But it is a useful strategy if you want to say you don't know in a more formal way. And when you use the extent of, make sure you use the extent of. So you need the article, the word extent, and then of, and then the information that comes next. So perhaps in the example I gave with a car accident, please complete these forms to outline the extent of the damage to your car because of the accident, how much damage there is. Let's keep reading. The group's hacking activity. So here we have it again as an adjective. I don't think we've seen it yet as a noun, which is quite interesting because we've seen so many other forms. So this is the adjective. The group's hacking activity, which dates back to 2018, according to the FBI. So according to the FBI, you can include according to when you want to show that perhaps it isn't a universal fact, but this group or this person believes it is true. And that group in this case is the FBI. And since we've been talking about articles, it's the FBI, the FBI, which dates back to, if something dates back to a specific date, then that's when it started, which started in 2018. So here dates back to, you need the preposition to 2018. You would replace these with which started in 2018. So of course you're talking to, talking about the date, which is why you're using dates, but this functions as a verb. The group's hacking activity, all of this is additional information. So to understand the grammar, I would go from here, the group's hacking activity, all of this is conjugated as it, third person singular it, adds to. So our phrasal verb is to add to. If you had a verb following this, you would use an ing, the gerund, because to is a preposition that belongs to the verb. However, we don't have a verb. We have a noun, which is very common to use as something. And that's why I explained this part is it because you see the S, third person singular. It adds to an ongoing record of US allegations of Chinese state backed, state backed, backed, state backed cyber espionage operations. So here, this is the word cyber. We have the word espionage, which you may know is another word for spy, spying activity, espionage, espionage, and then just add on cyber. What type of spying? Spying through networks and devices, cyber, cyber espionage, cyber espionage operations. Now, if it's state backed, backed means supported in this context. So I'll back you. Don't worry, I'll back you. I'll support you. But in this case, it's state backed, supported by the state. So you can use this in a very positive way. You might say our charity is backed by the DOJ, the Department of Justice. Now, I have no idea if the DOJ supports charities, but that's just the example of using backed as a verb. Our charity is backed, to be backed by, because it's the passive voice. Our charity is backed by the DOJ. So supported by. So in this case, supported by the state, which is the Chinese government. But this is not positive because they're talking about espionage, but it's only allegations. An allegation is I said you did this, but it hasn't been proven as fact. So that's an important word here. US allegations. The US has accused the Chinese government of doing this. Whether or not it's been proven as fact, I don't know. I don't have the security clearance. This article suggests it's just an allocation. Now here, notice this is ongoing record, record. This is the noun form. So notice that pronunciation record. Right now I'm recording, record, record. I'm recording my screen. So when you hit play, record, record. But this is a noun record, record. And ongoing means that it started in the past and it continues until now. They've been following this activity, this potential criminal activity. Let's keep reading. A spokesperson for the Chinese embassy in Washington. A spokesperson is a person who speaks on behalf of an official representative. A spokesperson for, so notice you can be a spokesperson for a group, the Chinese embassy, or even a person in Washington DC pushed back against. If you push back against, it means that you say no to it in whatever way. So here against what? Against the accusations. Remember the US accused the operation as being backed by the Chinese government. So that's the accusation. In this case, they use allegation, but a synonym is accusation, a claim of wrongdoing. But they pushed back. So they said no, no. So insisting, how did they push back? They insisted, they firmly said, insisting that China is a firm defender of cybersecurity. So they pushed back by saying, no, this wasn't us. No, we're not responsible. No, we do not support this, whatever, in whatever way they said it. Now here we have cyber and then security, security related to cyber activity. Before we saw cyber espionage, spying related to cyber activity, but here's cybersecurity. And we have a defender. So the verb is to defend. Defender is a person who defends. Now in this case, it could be a group or an organization, a country. So in this case, it's a country. China is a firm defender. Firm means that they strongly defend. So firm modifies defender, functions as an adjective here, and it describes how they defend. So it intensifies it. Cybersecurity, again, cybersecurity has been a source of tension. So if something is a source of tension between two groups, two people, two groups, or more than two, it means it's something they argue about. So you could even say in an everyday context, our vacation is a source of tension right now. You don't even have to say between, you could. Our vacation is a source of tension between my family right now. So the members in my family. Why? Maybe we just don't agree on where we want to go. Maybe we don't agree on the budget. Maybe we don't agree on how long or when. So you can use it with something minor. Of course, that's something that we're going to resolve and it's not a big deal. Or you can use it with something major. Like in this context, it sounds more significant. Cybersecurity has been a source of tension, something that has caused arguments or disagreement between the US and China, two geopolitical rivals. So a rival, another word for competitor, people who compete. Now notice with this expression, a source of tension, you need the verb be. In this case, it's conjugated in the present perfect because it suggests that it started being a source of tension in the past and it continues until now. After our vacation is done, I could talk about it and say to a girlfriend, oh yeah, our vacation was a source of tension. But thankfully, it worked out and we had a great time. So I could absolutely change the verb conjugation based on, well, of course you need to based on the subject, but you can decide where you want it to be on that timeline. Let's keep going. The 2026 Annual Threat Assessment from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, so a government department as well, says China is the most active and persistent cyber threat to US government, private sector, and critical infrastructure networks. Persistent means lasting for a long time, even despite efforts to get rid of it. So I could say simply this cold is persistent. I've been drinking water, I've been getting lots of sleep, I've been taking vitamin C, but this cold is persistent. So it's lasting for a long time, even despite effort to get rid of it. So in this case, it's not a cold, it's a cyber threat. Now here we have threat to US, again, this functions as an adjective, you know that because there's no article, so it's not the US, it's to, well, let's find out where our noun is. We have US government, private sector and critical infrastructure. Our network or our noun is networks. This is the main noun and all of the other words are adjectives that describe the noun. So what I mean by that is, so China is a threat to US government networks, to private sector networks, to critical infrastructure networks. And I would assume actually that US is for all of them. So it's US private sector networks, US critical infrastructure, US government networks. Why? Because otherwise you would need the US government, the private sector, and this would be two words. It wouldn't be a compound and critical infrastructure networks. So if networks was only for this last one, these two would be grammatically incorrect. So that's how I know, just by looking at them, that this information has to be the adjectives and this has to be the noun, because grammatically it's the only way the sentence would be correct. The DOJ's latest announcement, Department of Justice's latest announcement comes a month before Trump's counterpart, Xi Jinping, is expected to head to the US. So comes a month before. So simply means has happened or has been released, because you can release an announcement, you can publish an announcement. So has happened a month before Trump's counterpart, Xi Jinping. So Trump is the president of the US, Xi Jinping is the counterpart, so the leader of China, is expected to head to the US. So Xi Jinping is expected to travel to the US. So in this case, head represents travel, go, to go to the US, to head to the US amid continuing disputes in trade and technology. So there are disputes, disagreements in these two specific areas, and amid means something happens as something else is happening. So there are these disputes, and then the leader of China, Trump's counterpart, Xi Jinping, is going to head to the US. And that's the end of the article. So now I'll read the article from start to finish, and you can focus on my pronunciation. US says Chinese hackers targeted Senate, NASA, hospitals, and more. Federal officials on Wednesday announced they had disrupted a years long Chinese hacking campaign that compromised or targeted several US institutions, including NASA, the Federal Reserve, and even the Senate. The Department of Justice, DOJ, said in a statement it had seized internet domains used by two hacking platforms called QScan and QT Router that were created and operated by a Chinese state-sponsored group. The platforms were used to target US critical infrastructure and other sensitive networks. FBI Director Kash Patel said tools were used by Chinese government actors to hide the origin of their attacks. The DOJ's announcement did not specify if anybody had been charged or apprehended in relation to the hacking, and the extent of what has been compromised remains unclear. The group's hacking activity, which dates back to 2018, according to the FBI, adds to an ongoing record of US allegations of Chinese state-backed cyber espionage operations. A spokesperson for the Chinese embassy in Washington, DC, pushed back against the accusations, insisting that China is a firm defender of cybersecurity. Cybersecurity has been a source of tension between the US and China, two geopolitical rivals. The 2026 Annual Threat Assessment from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence says China is the most active and persistent cyber threat to US government, private sector, and critical infrastructure networks. The DOJ's latest announcement comes a month before Trump's counterpart, Xi Jinping, is expected to head to the US amid continuing disputes in trade and technology. Do you want to keep learning English with the news? If you do, put let's go, let's go, put let's go in the comments. And of course, make sure you like this lesson, share it with your friends, and subscribe so you're notified every time I post a new lesson. And you can get this free speaking guide where I share six tips on how to speak English fluently and confidently. You can click here to download it or look for the link in the description. And here's another lesson I know you'll love. Watch it now.