Cyber hackers hacked: BBC News Review

Hacking the hackers. World's biggest cyber-crime gang stopped.

This is News Review from BBC

Learning English, where we help you understand news headlines in English.

I am Neil. And I'm Georgie.

Make sure you watch to the end to learn the vocabulary

you need to talk about this story.

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so you can learn more English from news headlines. Now the story.

"One of the most significant disruptions of the cyber-criminal world".

That's what an operation to take control of Lockbit has been described as.

The criminal organisation thought to be based in Russia hacked

into companies' computers and locked users out until they paid them money.

Now, Lockbit has been locked out of its own website after a UK-led operation.

You've been looking at the headlines Georgie,

what's the vocabulary

people need to understand this story in English?

We have: 'takedown', 'prolific' and 'infamous'.

This is News Review from BBC Learning English.

Let's have a look at our first headline.

This one's from Reuters.

Lockbit cybercrime gang faces

global takedown with indictments and arrests.

So, Lockbit is the name of the cyber-crime gang that has had

its operations stopped by the British National Crime Agency.

We are looking at the word

'takedown' which seems very straightforward.

Georgie, when you take something down from the internet as a verb,

then you remove it. And so the noun is 'a takedown'.

Is it that simple?

Well, yes Neil, you're right.

We put things up on the internet.

You are watching News Review now because we put it up online.

The opposite is take something down the noun is 'a takedown',

but 'takedown' also has other meanings which make this headline interesting.

Yes, so we can describe a heavy defeat as 'a takedown'.

It comes from sport - wrestling.

If you throw someone to the ground, then

that is a takedown, you defeat them.

And so that's important in this headline as well because for this cyber-crime gang,

this is a heavy defeat.

It's a takedown.

Yes, another meaning of 'takedown' is strong criticism.

So Neil, remember when you told me that you're brilliant at juggling

and then you dropped all the balls within a second?

Yeah, you said that even your dog is a better juggler than me

which is a real takedown. Watch.

Maybe your takedown was right.

Let's look at that again.

Let's have our next headline.

This one's from CNN.

FBI and allies

seize dark-web site of world's most prolific ransomware gang.

So, here we are hearing about the FBI and their allies.

Allies are people who fight with you on the same side.

They've taken control of this dark-web site, Lockbit.

We are interested though in the word 'prolific'.

It's a very useful adjective isn't it?

Yes, so we use 'prolific' to describe something or someone that creates a lot

of something. In this case, Lockbit is described as prolific.

It has committed a lot of crimes, obviously committing a crime

is seen as a bad thing,

but 'prolific', isn't always used for negative situations is it, Neil?

No, we can also use 'prolific' to talk about good things.

So, for example, the footballer

Lionel Messi is a prolific goal scorer.

It means he scores a lot of goals, frequently.

Or let's think about the writer Stephen King.

He is a prolific author.

He has written about 65 novels.

Now, Georgie. What is the opposite of prolific?

Well, unfortunately, we can't use 'unprolific'.

We could use 'unproductive'.

Neil, you've told me many times that you're a singer-songwriter

but you've never actually written a song, have you?

You are unproductive.

I am, it's true, very unproductive.

But you wait,

my album is definitely coming next year.

Let's look at that again.

Let's have our next headline.

This one's from the Mirror.

Infamous cybercrime gang 'Lockbit' taken down in huge operation led by UK

and the FBI.  

OK, so there's 'take down', as a verb

this time, that we saw in our first headline,

but we are looking at 'infamous' and in the word

'infamous', I can recognise the word 'famous'.

We all know what 'famous' means and then there's that prefix

'in' which usually means that

it's the opposite in meaning.

But that's not the case here, is it?

No, and this is a slightly confusing bit of English because yes,

you're right - when we see the prefix 'im' or 'in' it usually means

the word becomes the opposite, so 'impossible' means 'not possible'.

Sometimes, though that isn't the case, like here with 'infamous'.

Yeah. So 'infamous' doesn't mean, 'not famous'.

It means 'famous, but for bad reasons'.

So, for example, famous criminals are infamous or dictators,

people like that. Another similar word with a similar meaning

is 'notorious'.

Yes, and another good example of when the 'in' prefix in a word doesn't mean

'not' is 'inflammable', so 'flammable' means that something can catch fire.

So you would think that

'inflammable' means that

it can't catch fire, but actually 'inflammable' means that

it's very likely to catch fire, which is confusing.

And a note on pronunciation of 'infamous' the stress is on the first syllable -

INfamous. We don't say

inFAmous.

OK, let's look at that again.

We've had 'takedown' - the removal

of something from the internet

or a defeat. 'Prolific' -

producing a lot of something and 'infamous' - famous,

but for negative reasons.

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