Help the cybersecurity detective finish his official report by selecting the correct verb tense.

"After the hacker ______ all the confidential files, she permanently erased her digital footprints."

The correct answer is had downloaded.

When describing a sequence of events in the past, we often use the past perfect tense (had + past participle) in the time clause (starting with after or before) to emphasize that this action was completely finished before the next past action ("erased") occurred.