Filled with spies, hackers, arms dealers, and a few unsung heroes, written like a thriller and a reference, This Is How They Tell Me the World Ends is an astonishing feat of journalism. Based on years of reporting and hundreds of interviews, The New York Times reporter Nicole Perlroth lifts the curtain on a market in shadow, revealing the urgent threat faced by us all if we cannot bring the global cyber arms race to heel. Zero day: a software bug that allows a hacker to break into your devices and move around undetected. For decades, under cover of classification levels and non-disclosure agreements, the United States government became the world's dominant hoarder of zero days. U.S. government agents paid top dollar to hackers willing to sell their lock-picking code and their silence. 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. Perlroth lifts the curtain on a market in shadow, revealing the urgent threat faced by us all if we cannot bring the global cyber arms race to heel. -- adapted from jacket

Prologue -- Part I: Mission impossible. Closet of secrets ; The fucking salmon -- Part II: The capitalists. The cowboy ; The first broker ; Zero-day Charlie -- Part III: The spies. Project Gunman ; The godfather ; The omnivore ; The Rubicon ; The factory -- Part IV: The mercenaries. The Kurd ; Dirty business ; Guns for hire -- Part V: The resistance. Aurora ; Bounty hunters ; Going dark -- Part VI: The twister. Cyber gauchos ; Perfect storm ; The grid -- Part VII: Boomerang. The Russians are coming ; The shadow brokers ; The attacks ; The backyard -- Epilogue.