Getting hacked is very much like catching a nasty flu. It begins with an infection of malware—malicious software that spreads across a network—and ends with a feeling of deep enfeeblement. In late 2012, not long after the New York Times reported on a corruption scandal involving China’s former prime minister, the newsroom got a bad case. AT&T, which maintains the Times’ servers, notified the company that suspicious activity had been detected on its network. An internal investigation revealed an attack on a dramatic scale: Chinese hackers had broken into email accounts, stolen the passwords of every employee, installed forty-five pieces of customized malware, and begun spying on fifty-three employees, seeking information about anything related to the Chinese prime minister’s family. It was a complicated and devastating infection—a near masterpiece.