event

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

Tue. February 23rd, 2021
Live Online

Zero day—a software bug hackers use to break into your devices and move around undetected—is one of the most coveted tools in a spy’s arsenal. This powerful tool can silently spy on your iPhone, dismantle the safety controls at a chemical plant, alter a government election, and shut down a country’s electric grid.

For decades, under cover of classification levels and nondisclosure agreements, the United States government became the world's dominant hoarder of zero days. U.S. government agents paid top dollar—first thousands, and later millions—to hackers willing to sell their lock-picking code and their silence. 

Then, the United States lost control of its hoard and the market. 

Now those zero days are in the hands of hostile nations and mercenaries who do not care if your vote goes missing, your clean water is contaminated, or our nuclear plants melt down. 

Join us for a conversation featuring George Perkovich and Nicole Perlroth as the two discuss Perlroth’s recently published book, This is How They Tell Me the World Ends, and the urgent threat to us all if we cannot bring the cyber arms race to heel.

Carnegie does not take institutional positions on public policy issues; the views represented herein are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of Carnegie, its staff, or its trustees.
event speakers

George Perkovich

Japan Chair for a World Without Nuclear Weapons, Vice President for Studies

George Perkovich is the Japan chair for a world without nuclear weapons and vice president for studies at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, overseeing the Nuclear Policy Program and the Technology and International Affairs Program. He works primarily on nuclear strategy and nonproliferation issues, and security dilemmas among the United States, its allies, and their nuclear-armed adversaries. 

Nicole Perlroth

Nicole is an award-winning cybersecurity journalist for The New York Times, where her work has been optioned for both film and television. She is a regular lecturer at the Stanford Graduate School of Business and a graduate of Princeton University and Stanford University. She lives with her family in the Bay Area but increasingly prefers life off the grid in their cabin in the woods.