Nicole Perlroth is an acclaimed American journalist and author specializing in cybersecurity, with a focus on cyber weapons, state-sponsored hacking, and the global arms race in digital vulnerabilities. She began her career at Forbes covering technology and security issues before joining The New York Times in 2015 as its lead cybersecurity reporter, where she worked until 2021. During her tenure, she broke numerous stories on cyber espionage, including revelations about nation-state hacking operations and the proliferation of zero-day exploits, earning recognition such as the 2019 Gerald Loeb Award. In 2021, she left the Times to write her debut book, 'This Is How They Tell Me the World Ends: The Cyberweapons Arms Race,' which became a New York Times bestseller and draws on her decade of reporting to expose the underground economy of cyber exploits. Her work has highlighted threats from actors like Russia's GRU and China's hacking units, influenced public discourse on major incidents like the SolarWinds hack and Colonial Pipeline ransomware attack, and positioned her as a key voice advocating for greater transparency in the zero-day market. She has testified before Congress, advised on policy, and continues as an independent journalist, lecturer, and commentator on digital security.