B1 – Intermediate
Hotels are your home away from home. You book hotels when you are on holiday or business trip. To do that, you need to give them your personal information including your credit card information. But what if those information were stolen from them?
Read the transcript and listen to the audio about a hotel chain’s hacking incident.
Discussion Questions:
- What is your reaction to this news?
- What can businesses do to protect themselves from hacking?
- Talk about other people or companies whose accounts/systems have been hacked.
- When is hacking good and bad?
- If you were to hack a person or company’s account or system, who or which would it be and why? What information would you like to see?
22 replies on “Hotel Guests Information Hacked”
Unfortunately, these data breaches are quite common. The most concerning fact is that the legitimate owners of the information -I mean the affected users- not always get informed or they get informed several months or years after the incident. I wonder how many cases will not be revealed to the public and the data protection agencies.
Businesses, especially big companies, invest large amounts of money in cyber security. In general, they have a mix of strategies to avoid non authorized access to their systems and also to detect and block suspicious traffic patterns. Those techniques include something called “ethical hacking” which basically engages an external security team to actively hack their systems, providing the company a report of detected vulnerabilities and possible countermeasures.
News about hacking are so common that I can only remember a few, like Yahoo, Microsoft, LinkedIn or Telefónica. Even some airlines and government services like the Social Security of Spain.
Hacking can be beneficial when it’s a targeted action against crime organizations and it is used to anticipate threats or attacks. The thin line is between the rights of privacy of citizens or companies and intelligence services function. Hacking is by principle a bad thing but has produced massive investments in R&D and created a very solid cyber-security industry as well as a corps of qualified professionals.
I don’t expect to find anything interesting in someone’s account, but it would be interesting to get access to the real source of truth about what caused the recent pandemic.
It’s great to have you on the Phoneenglish blog! You did a very good job. Make the most out of this exercise to practice writing.
Take a look at this sentence and see how you can revise it:
Looking forward to reading more from you!
What is your reaction to this news?
I am not surprised by the news since through my work I have seen several security breaches that can facilitate hacking of information
What can businesses do to protect themselves from hacking?
Improve the security system for accessing the database
Talk about other people or companies whose accounts/systems have been hacked.
Facebook had a hack that exposed the personal data of thousands of users
When is hacking good and bad?
Hacking is always wrong as exposing someone’s personal data is illegal
If you were to hack a person or company’s account or system, who or which would it be and why? What information would you like to see?
Personally I would like to know the expenses of the royal crown of Spain, the money they spend on superfluous things
You are doing quite a good job working on your writing skills.
Remember to always write your answers in full sentences and try to be a bit more elaborate or cite more ideas.
See how you can revise this one:
Continue practicing to improve more and more.
1. What is your reaction to this news?
It’s not surprise for me. I have listened this information from other companies.
2. What can businesses do to protect themselves from hacking?
I don’t know what they can do to protect themselves from hacking, but I am sure that there are ways to make hacking difficult.
3. Talk about other people or companies whose accounts/systems have been hacked.
I knew that one company have been hacked two months ago. They had stopped their company stopped one months until they could restore the service.
4. When is hacking good and bad?
I consider good hacking only when the police need to do it to investigate something.
5. If you were to hack a person or company’s account or system, who or which would it be and why? What information would you like to see?
I don’t have any interest into get information from a person or company.
Nice work answering your lesson’s discussion questions.
Take a look at how you can revise this sentence:
Keep up the good job!
1. What is your reaction to this news?
It doesn’t surprise me much, these attacks are common to large companies. The problem is the use of hacked information,
This news reflects the vulnerability of the security systems used by companies and the exposure of our information.
2. What can businesses do to protect themselves from hacking?
One possible action, in addition to having a good security system, may be to hire hackers in your company’s IT department. I believe that the people who will best know how to protect the system are the same ones who know how to attack it.
3. Talk about other people or companies whose accounts/systems have been hacked.
Through the media we know companies that have been hacked belong to different sectors, countries and affect both public and private companies.
Example of companies affected: NASA, Large European and American Banks, Technology Companies, telephone companies, Airlines,..
4. When is hacking good and bad?
In my opinion, piracy is always unjustified. But society justifies this activity when the police investigate some crimes,
5. If you were to hack a person or company’s account or system, who or which would it be and why? What information would you like to see?
I have no interest in hacking anyone, and have not thought about this possibility.
Good work striving to enhance your skills.
Here is a better way to express this sentence:
Keep going with this exercise.
1. What is your reaction to this news?
I am not surprised, today I think that our personal information is in many places even if we do not know it and we have not authorized it to share it
2. What can businesses do to protect themselves from hacking?
hire cyber security companies, and create basic protection standards.
3. Talk about other people or companies whose accounts/systems have been hacked.
Something similar happens on Facebook
4. When is hacking good and bad?
I think it’s always bad and illegal. Because if your information is shared and you are authorized to do so, it is not a hack. Sometimes databases are sold between companies and are very expensive.
5. If you were to hack a person or company’s account or system,
who or which would it be and why? What information would you like to see?
Financial information of politicians who are currently in the government to see how their fortunes have grown. Although it would be a bit dangerous. Such as Wikileaks
Good to see you continuing practicing your writing.
Here is a sentence you can still revise:
Keep going with this exercise in order to improve further.
1. In my opinion happens time to time, companies with a lot of people data are most common targets of cyber crimes.
2. With the creation of security protocols and also have encrypt the data in his databases.
3. Companies are very afraid of being the target of group of hackers.
4. Good haking / white hat is when your work in ciber security and detect weakness points in security protocols and your notify it or your will work in their improvement.
Bad hacking / black hat is the normal hack that people know, access to places, exploiting weakness, steal data for selling or try to extorsion people with his data.
5. The Ceo of Activision-Blizzard, I have curious about why he ruined all his products, I would like to know, why did he do that?
Great job writing your answers to this lesson’s discussion questions.
Here’s how you can write this sentence a bit better:
Happy writing practice!
First and foremost, this news has not been a surprise for me. Nowadays, cybercrime is quite common. The best way to protect a company from hacking attacks is by hiring a good security system.
Every single day a lot of people and companies file to the police a report of thefts on the internet. Criminals steal money, data, and information. For instance, a closer friend lost a large amount of money when he replied to an email. He gave personal information about his bank account. Also, a big company like Sony received cybers attacks. Emails and films were stolen from the company and criminals blackmail Sony to not publish them.
To summary, knowing how to hack is a good skill and an upside if you use it for a good purpose. For instance, hackers who work with the police to capture criminals. On the other hand, If I were a cybercriminal, I would develop my skills stealing money and private information from very important people
Well done answering our questions about this issue on cybersecurity. Please see how you can express the following sentences a little well:
Every single day a lot of people and companies file to the police a report of thefts on the internet.
> Every single day, a lot of people and companies report internet theft to the police.
Emails and films were stolen from the company and criminals blackmail Sony to not publish them.
> Emails and films were stolen from the company and criminals blackmail Sony that they are going leak the said materials/information if they do not give them their demands.
For instance, hackers who work with the police to capture criminals.
> For instance, there are hackers who work with the police to capture criminals.
You are doing a very good job so far.
1. What is your reaction to this news?
In my opinion is a normal situation, bacuse all the days this activities happens many time
2. What can businesses do to protect themselves from hacking?
hire cyber security companies, and create basic protection standards.
3. Talk about other people or companies whose accounts/systems have been hacked.
this companies are very vulnerable and afraid.
4. When is hacking good and bad?
depends. if this hacking is legal or not
5. If you were to hack a person or company’s account or system,
who or which would it be and why? What information would you like to see?
the company ceo, bacause is the head of the company. Family information for example.
Your efforts in writing down your responses to these questions are much appreciated. Here is how you can improve this one particular sentence:
In my opinion is a normal situation
,bacuse all the days this activities happens many time> In my opinion, this is a normal situation because these activities happen all the time.
Good work. Keep on writing.
That is not a surprising news, I do believe that is most common that we read on the news.
Companies of different sizes and importance are the focus of hackers who are looking for those important information that they hold, such as client name or credit card numbers to sell the information to other companies or steal the money from your credit card.
Lot of relevant companies have suffered from the hackers and probably they haven´t reported to the news.
With this in mind, and to prevent the breaches in the security, the companies must invest a lot of money to prevent this attack with more secure and power technology systems and applications, with a careful control of the information.
After reading an article about other companies who have suffered from this attack, I found some important company names such as Yahoo, Linkedin, Adobe, and it was surprising for me the fact that “The smallest incident on this list involved the data of a mere 134 million people” it´s a huge amount of people affected.
About hacking, from my point of view as you don´t have permission of the other part about the information, it should be avoid.
If I was going to be a hacker I would like to see the researches about new planes or new medicines or physical discoveries.
Hacking is a very serious problem many companies often do not give too much attention to. Here is how you can say this sentence better:
About hacking, from my point of view as you don´t have permission of the other part about the information, it should be avoid.
> From my point of view, as you don´t have permission to access the other parts of the information, hacking should be avoided.
Keep going!
This news is not a surprise for me because I think that most of big companies suffer hacker attacks but or we don´t know it or the hacker attack is not effective.
This is one of the big problems in the business world today, and my opinion about this is that the best defense is a good attack; I explain, if you want have a sure system, you must have the best hackers fot attack this sistem because with the information that this hackers know, you can prepare your system defense and the companies could be faster than the hackers.
The hackers attacks are in the news all days, this week for example we know that EasyJet have suffered a important hacker attack that could be affected a personal and bank information of his customers, and this is a big problem that the companies don´t felt important until they have the problem.
When the hacker is god or bad? In my opinion hacker is good only when this action is for learn a better defense. I don´t think that if you hack a system in other case, you have a good intention.
I don´t like see anything information of other person. I thing that the personal information is, obviusly, personal and other people could know only if the interested want it.
Thanks for answering these questions well. Here are a few phrases/sentences you can improve on:
if you want have a sure system
> if you want have a SECURED system
EasyJet have suffered a important hacker attack that could be affected a personal and bank information of his customers
,and this is a big problem thatthecompanies don´t felt important until they have the problem.> EasyJet HAS suffered a SERIOUS HACKING attack that could AFFECT personal and bank information of THEIR customers and this is a big problem that companies don´t FEEL IS important until they have the problem.
Continue to practice your writing skills through these lessons.
It’s surprising that a high-standing hotel such as Marriott did not have safety measures to detect a hacker in their system. Hotels manage sensitive information about their clients and these ones have to be treated as a confidential one; otherwise the client can lose his/her confidence and hence the hotel will lose prestige.
Keeping your business free from hacking is a difficult matter since the hackers are working day and night to get into company systems and take confidential information even though they have purchased antivirus.
There are companies specialized in protecting the security of other businesses. They are called cybersecurity companies.
At first, you can come up with that you are wasting your money but just think about the consecuences in case of hacking, then you will realize the good investment you did.
In my country, there have been some trials to hack big companies not long time ago. It provoked a complete chaos both to the companies which had to ask for their employees to turned off their computers to avoid infecting and also to the country because it also affected to hospital equipment.
The only good I find to hack a system is only for investigation purposes to find illicite activities on people.
Hacking is indeed a very difficult problem to deal with. Good job expressing your thoughts. Kindly check out these few alternatives to some words you used:
It’s surprising that a high-standing hotel such as Marriott did not have safety measures to detect a hacker in their system.
> It’s surprising that a high-class hotel such as Marriott did not have security measures to detect a hacker in their system.
In my country, there have been some trials to hack big companies not long time ago.
> In my country, there have been some attempts to hack big companies not a long time ago/not so long ago.
You are getting better and better at this!