Twitter hack: Obama, Bezos and Kanye targeted

Twitter hack: Obama, Bezos and Kanye targeted 

I Lead-in.

1 Is a social networking service Twitter popular in your country? Do you use it?

2 What people have a lot of followers in Twitter? Do you follow any famous people on Twitter?

3 What kind of information do people post on Twitter?

II Vocabulary focus. Match the words to their definitions. Use five words in your sentences.

1.	a tweet	A.	difficult
2.	high-profile	B.	extremely large
3.	to double	C.	size of something
4.	donation	D.	trying to influence something without right or invitation
5.	bitcoin	E.	to aim an attack at a certain person
6.	a hack	F.	a post on social media platform Twitter
7.	enormous	G.	designed to harm and damage other people
8.	scale	H.	attracting a lot of attention and interest
9.	celebrity	I.	to give control
10.	to target	J.	to become two times bigger
11.	to lure	K.	part of company’s capital
12.	to hand over	L.	powerful effect
13.	meddling	M.	not real
14.	tough	N.	an act of getting into someone else’s computer system without permission
15.	employee	O.	sum of money people give to charity
16.	malicious	P.	a famous person
17.	fake	Q.	to trick someone into doing something
18.	impact	R.	a type of digital currency
19.	share	S.	a person who works for a company

III Vocabulary focus. Follow the link below. Study the words and  word combinations using flashcards, check your understanding, practise their  spelling. Write the words using definitions, check your knowledge in the test. Play matching vocabulary game (match words to their translations to make cards disappear)  and save the planet from asteroids by typing in correct words.

  

IV Watch the video and fill in the gaps with the words from the list. There are some words you don’t need to use.

attack; thousand; deleted; scale; terrible; high-profile; profits; money; richest; terror; president; candidate; social media; financial; malicious; understanding; systems; tough; delay; dollars; followers; celebrities; fake

The tweets appeared in the name of some of the most 1) ______ and powerful figures in the world: from hundreds of accounts, to tens of millions of 2) ______, and all containing the same message. From the account of former 3)______ Barack Obama an apparent offer to double any donation of a thousand 4) ______ sent in Bitcoin. In the words of the tweet: “to give back to the community”. This was the work of a hack on an enormous 5) ______.

 The accounts of 6) ______ like Kim Kardashian were also targeted in an apparent attempt to lure their followers into nothing more than handing over 7)______. The corporate accounts of tech giants like Apple were also hit, and even some of the world's 8) ______ figures like the Microsoft founder Bill Gates. Most of the tweets were quickly 9) ______ as Twitter began an investigation, but experts say it's possibly the most significant hack that any 10) ______   ______ platform has seen.

The targeting of largely Democrat politicians, like presidential 11) ______ Joe Biden, has raised the spectre of the sort of meddling that plagued the 2016 U.S election. Biden’s campaign has asked Twitter for answers. The network's founder Jack Dorsey tweeted: “It was a 12) ______ day for us at Twitter. We all feel 13) ______ this happened. We’re diagnosing and we'll share everything we can when we have a more complete 14) ______ of exactly what happened”.

          The company described the hack as a coordinated social engineering 15) ______ by people who successfully targeted some of its employees with access to 16) ______ and tools. They say there could have been other 17) ______ activity too. It hardly inspired confidence though, that having deleted the 18) ______ tweet from billionaire Elon Musk it reappeared not once but twice. Twitter’s already felt the 19) ______ impact of the crisis in its share price.

The hackers though are counting the 20) ______. Hundreds of people did pay up having seen these tweets to the tune of more than a hundred 21) ______ dollars.

V  Watch the video again and mark the sentences as True (T) or False (F). Correct the false statements.

1.    The tweets that appeared in the name of some of the most powerful figures contained different messages about bank accounts.  

2.    Hackers offered to double any donation of a thousand dollars sent in Bitcoin.  

3.    The accounts of celebrities like Kim Kardashian were targeted in an attempt to access followers’ personal information.  

4.    Bill Gates quickly deleted tweets from famous people’s accounts and Microsoft began an investigation.  

5.    This attack is the first example of hack on social media platforms.  

6.    Jack Dorsey tweeted that the company would diagnose the problem and share their understanding.  

7.    Jack Dorsey said that the company had complete understanding of exactly what happened.  

8.    The hack was a coordinated social engineering attack.  

9.    Hackers targeted some of Twitter’s employees with access to systems and tools.  

10.Fake tweet from billionaire Elon Musk was deleted, but it reappeared not once but ten times.  

11.Twitter’s already seen the financial impact of the crisis.   

12.The hackers though are disappointed because they lost money.

13.No one paid the hackers having seen the tweets.  

VI OVER TO YOU. Discuss the types of hacker attacks that used social media in the past. What social media were used? What users were targeted (celebrities, politicians, companies)? What did hackers want people to do (to pay money, to buy a product)? How did the hackers plan their attack? How can users protect themselves from such attacks?