This Is How They Tell Me the World Ends: The Cyberweapons Arms Race

by Nicole Perlroth

Some of the best cybersecurity reporting over the past decade—I am proud to say—belongs to my colleagues at the New York Times. John Markoff, my predecessor at the Times, has been generous with time and source material and collaborated with me on a number of articles that are mentioned in these pages. David Sanger first revealed the real codename “Olympic Games”—for the computer worm the world knew only as Stuxnet. And it was David that pulled me into the reporting on the escalating digital Cold War between the United States and Russia that the President likened to “treason.” Scott Shane wrote one of the most sweeping accounts of the NSA’s digital capabilities while seated beside me in Sulzberger’s closet. David, Scott and I partnered on a number of stories during and after the Shadow Brokers’ leaks. Without Azam Ahmed, I would never have uncovered the depths to which Mexico abused NSO’s surveillance technology. Mark Mazzetti, Adam Goldman, Ronen Bergman and I wrote a comprehensive account of Dark Matter and NSO Group for the Times. And later Mark, Ronen and I reported that a widely downloaded mobile app, called ToTok—a play on the popular Chinese app TikTok—was actually a cleverly disguised Emirati surveillance tool. Matt Rosenberg and I partnered on the more recent Russian attack on Burisma, the Ukrainian company at the heart of President Trump’s impeachment. And David, Matt and I continue to cover cybersecurity threats to the 2020 election together.