OpenAI says its review into hacks, including on Australian government sites, is costing $500,000...
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EN: The structure 'spend + [amount of money/time] + [frequency] + to + infinitive' (or 'spend + time/money + doing') is used to express the cost or investment needed to achieve an objective. In news headlines, the full infinitive 'to investigate' explicitly denotes purpose ('in order to investigate').
The government spends millions of dollars a year to upgrade public transit systems.
EN: News headlines commonly use the simple present tense ('Spends') to report recent or ongoing events to create a sense of immediacy and drama, even if the action has already started or happened in the past.
Tech giant launches new satellite to monitor climate change.
EN: In modern tech journalism, headlines use title casing (capitalizing major words) and present tense verbs to grab attention. Unauthorized automated access by AI crawlers or bots is often referred to plainly as 'hacking' in headlines to convey the serious nature of a security breach.
EN: The sentence uses the present perfect tense ('has announced') to indicate a recent action that has current news relevance, followed by a 'that'-noun clause functioning as the direct object of the verb.
The company has confirmed that the system is safe.
EN: The verb 'cost' is used in the present continuous tense ('is costing') to emphasize an ongoing, active expense that continues day by day, modified by the comparative phrase 'more than'.
The ongoing repair is costing a lot of money.
EN: In cybersecurity and corporate PR, terms like 'data breach incidents' are carefully chosen formal vocabulary used to describe unauthorized access to systems, emphasizing an objective and technical review process.
EN: The verb 'access' is transitive in English and is followed directly by its direct object without a preposition (e.g., avoid saying 'access to a website').
Unauthorized users cannot access the database.
EN: The prepositional phrase 'without + noun/gerund' functions as an adverbial of manner, indicating that an action is performed lacking a specific condition or permission.
He entered the secure building without permission.
EN: In cybersecurity and legal contexts, 'without authorization' (or 'unauthorized access') is standard formal terminology used to denote illegal hacking or breach under cybercrime legislation.
EN: The verb 'include' is followed by a gerund (-ing form), such as 'hacking', which functions as the direct object of the verb. Prepositions like 'into' follow 'hack' to indicate the target entered without authorization.
His duties include monitoring network traffic and fixing security flaws.
EN: Compound noun modifiers: In the phrases 'Medicare statistics portal' and 'government website', nouns ('Medicare', 'statistics', 'government') act as adjectives (noun adjuncts) modifying the main noun.
The company established a customer support portal last month.
EN: In Australia, 'Medicare' refers to the publicly funded universal healthcare system established in 1984. It is distinct from the US Medicare system, which primarily covers individuals aged 65 and older.
EN: The subordinating conjunction 'because' introduces an adverbial clause of reason, explaining why the cybersecurity review is described as enormous.
The project was delayed because the team needed to verify the results.
EN: The semi-modal verb 'need' followed by a to-infinitive ('needs to examine') expresses requirement or necessity for a third-person singular subject ('OpenAI').
She needs to submit the report before noon.
EN: A 'petabyte' (PB) equals 1,024 terabytes or roughly one million gigabytes. In modern tech and cybersecurity contexts, auditing petabyte-scale data requires specialized AI infrastructure, highlighting that this is not merely a manual file inspection but a massive computational effort.
EN: The adverb 'roughly' is used before numbers, amounts, or quantities to mean 'approximately' or 'about'. It functions as a degree/quantity modifier.
The trip will take roughly three hours by train.
EN: Large number expressions followed by 'of': Countable data units (like gigabytes) can be quantified with large numerical compounds (50 million gigabytes) followed by the preposition 'of' and an uncountable noun (information) to specify what the quantity consists of.
The hard drive contains thousands of gigabytes of photos.
EN: In technology journalism, journalists often convert complex and unfamiliar storage units (such as petabytes) into more recognizable consumer terms like 'gigabytes' or human-scale analogies (e.g., millions of years of reading) to help general readers grasp the massive scale of a cybersecurity breach or dataset.
EN: Second Conditional (Unreal Present/Future): Used to talk about hypothetical, unlikely, or impossible situations in the present or future. The structure is 'if + past simple (were/did), would + base verb'. The subjunctive form 'were' is conventionally used for all subjects including singular ones.
If I had more free time, I would learn how to code.
EN: 'It takes [someone] [time] to [do something]': A common pattern used to express the amount of time required for someone to complete an action. In hypothetical contexts, it changes to 'it would take...'.
It took the team three weeks to finish the comprehensive report.
EN: In technology and cybersecurity communications, companies often convert abstract data measurements (like 50 petabytes) into human-scale analogies (such as 'millions of years to read') to help the public and regulators grasp the sheer scale and complexity of an investigation.
EN: The Present Continuous tense ('is using') is formed with 'be' + verb-ing. It indicates an action that is currently ongoing or developing at the present time.
The team is developing a new mobile application.
EN: The infinitive of purpose ('to speed up') uses 'to' + base verb to explain why an action is being performed, answering the question 'why?'.
She took a taxi to arrive on time.
EN: The phrasal verb 'speed up' is widely used in technology, business, and daily communication to describe accelerating workflows or timelines. In tech news, applying AI tools to process massive volumes of investigative data has become standard industry practice.
EN: The sentence uses the Present Perfect Passive ('have been' + past participle 'affected'). It describes an action that happened at an unspecified time in the past and has direct relevance or results in the present, while placing the receiver of the action (the websites) in the subject position.
Several files have been deleted by the virus.
EN: The adverbial phrase 'so far' means 'up until now'. It is commonly used with the present perfect tense to indicate that a situation is ongoing and the number or status may change in the future.
We have received twenty applications so far.
EN: In modern AI terminology, an 'agent' refers to an autonomous AI system designed to perceive its environment, make decisions, and take actions independently to achieve specific goals, rather than a human representative.
EN: Past Perfect Tense (had + past participle): Used here to show that the hacking ('had hacked') occurred before another event in the past (the Prime Minister's announcement, 'announced').
The police announced that the suspect had fled the country.
EN: Apposition: 'Anthony Albanese' is set off by commas as an appositive noun phrase renaming and clarifying 'The Australian Prime Minister'.
The company CEO, Sarah Jenkins, delivered the opening speech.
EN: Services Australia is the Australian federal government agency responsible for delivering a range of health and social programs, including Medicare (the country's publicly funded universal healthcare system). A breach of this portal is politically sensitive as it handles millions of citizens' private medical and identity records.
EN: The past perfect tense ('had accessed') is used here to indicate an action that happened before another past event (the main verb 'revealed'). Since the accessing took place in June before the Friday evening announcement, 'had + past participle' is required.
The police announced that the suspect had fled the country a week earlier.
EN: The verb 'reveal' takes a noun clause introduced by the conjunction 'that' as its direct object ('revealed that...'). This pattern is commonly used in reporting verbs to introduce factual information or statements.
The report revealed that customer satisfaction had significantly improved.
EN: In Australian English, 'bushfire' specifically refers to wildfires occurring in the Australian scrub or bushland, which are a major seasonal ecological and safety hazard in states like New South Wales. In American English, the term 'wildfire' or 'forest fire' is typically preferred.
EN: Parallel 'that' clauses: When a reporting verb (like 'warn', 'say', or 'state') takes multiple noun clauses as objects, each clause is typically introduced by 'that' and joined by coordinating conjunctions such as 'and'. Keeping the second 'that' helps maintain clarity in formal and news contexts.
The manager explained that the system was down and that technicians were fixing it.
EN: Passive voice with modal verbs: The structure 'modal verb + be + past participle' (e.g., 'may be contacted') is used when the focus is on the recipient of the action rather than the doer, or when the agent is unknown or implied.
All participants will be notified before Friday.
EN: In cybersecurity and corporate communication, phrasing like 'investigation is still ongoing' and 'organizations may be contacted' is standard legal-cautious language. Companies use such tentative modals ('may') and ongoing status updates to maintain transparency while avoiding liability or premature conclusions.
EN: The reporting verb 'said' introduces an indirect statement using a noun clause starting with 'that'. Inside the clause, the present continuous tense ('is working') emphasizes an ongoing, active investigation at the time of communication.
The team confirmed that they are testing the new software update.
EN: The phrasal verb 'work through' means to deal with or examine a complex set of items step by step. Paired with the repetitive time adverbial 'month by month' (noun + preposition + noun), it indicates systematic, progressive action over time.
We need to go through the applications step by step.
EN: In the modern tech sector, publishing post-mortems, updates, and breach disclosures via an official 'blog post' is the standard industry practice for corporate transparency, often replacing traditional press releases.
EN: The relative pronoun 'which' introduces a restrictive relative clause modifying the noun 'activity'. It acts as the subject of the passive verb phrase inside the clause.
We should fix any security issues which were reported yesterday.
EN: The present perfect passive ('has not been discovered') combined with 'yet' indicates an action that has not occurred up to the present moment, but is anticipated.
The final report has not been published yet.
EN: In corporate communications and cybersecurity incident response, companies often use neutral, technical euphemisms like 'unintended activity' rather than direct terms like 'malicious hacking' or 'system failure' while an investigation is active to manage legal liabilities and public perception.
EN: The passive voice construction 'was caused by' is used to explain the reason or origin of an event, placing emphasis on the result ('The delay...') rather than the cause itself.
The traffic jam was caused by a sudden accident on the highway.
EN: The relative clause 'that needed to be reviewed' modifies 'data'. It uses the passive infinitive 'to be reviewed' to indicate that the data required someone to review it.
There are many documents that need to be signed today.
EN: New South Wales (NSW) is Australia's most populous state, with Sydney as its capital. In news coverage of government data breaches, organizations often emphasize the immense scale of data ('volume of data') to explain why disclosure timelines can span weeks or months.
Key vocabulary words with IPA pronunciation, definitions, example sentences, and interactive quizzes.
Phrases with type tags, bilingual definitions, usage notes, and example sentences.
An incident where confidential or protected information is accessed or taken without authorization.
To accelerate or make something happen faster.
To examine or deal with a series of items or problems systematically from beginning to end.
Soon; in a time not far from now.