In late March, I received a troubling message from Fortune’s IT administrator. “There is a process that’s exposing a vulnerability,” he wrote, telling me that someone may be prowling around my computer. “I need to kill it.” I panicked. A file I had downloaded at 11:04 a.m. had the capacity to monitor my keyboard strokes, record my computer screen, see my passwords, and access my apps, according to logs later reviewed by Fortune’s IT department.
After shutting down my laptop, I rushed out of my Brooklyn apartment and ran to the nearest subway station. While waiting for the train to Fortune’s office, where I planned to wipe the laptop with IT’s help, I texted my editor: “I think I may have been phished by the DPRK lol.”
