Australia’s defence intelligence agency sent an officer to work with New Zealand’s spy agency to help them develop their cyber capabilities and lead a new operational unit, new documents from NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden reveal.

On Wednesday the New Zealand Herald and the Intercept published new revelations about the role of New Zealand’s spy agency, the Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB) which disclose new details about its role gathering intelligence from Vietnam, China, India, Pakistan, Japan, South Pacific nations and other countries.

The disclosures also reveal that the GCSB had access to an NSA program codenamed WARRIORPRIDE used to access phones and computers that “can collect against an Asean target”. A March 2013 report describes New Zealand working towards improving its cyber capabilities to improve detection, discovery of new tools and disruption of the source of intrusions.

In meeting minutes from a joint NSA forum on signals intelligence in 2009, an officer from the Defence Signals Directorate – now the Australian Signals Directorate – was sent to help the GCSB set up a “network analysis” team to improve their cyber capabilities.

“GCSB is establishing their first network analysis team in October 2009, DSD’s [redacted] will PCS to GCSB for two years to lead this team. The new team will initially be focused on access development and is aimed at proving the utility of network analysis such that a push can be made for additional GCSB billets”.

The document goes on to say that GCSB’s “access development activities” will focus on the South Pacific “and entail closer partnering and engagement with DSD, NZSIS [New Zealand Security Intelligence Service] and Asis [Australian Secret Intelligence Service].

It says this is a “continuing high priority issue given the increasing rollout of cable in the South Pacific region”.

It is publicly acknowledged that the Australian Signals Directorate engages in cybersecurity operations, although little is known about the details of the operations.

In January 2010 a Cyber Security Operations Centre was formed to help understand security threats to Australia and to “coordinate a response to those threats across government and industry.”

The document also says that the GCSB “are also working to gain connectivity to DSD XKEYSCORE”.

The XKEYSCORE program allows intelligence analysts to gain access to vast troves of web data from all around the world, in what the NSA says is its “widest-reaching” system.

In a briefing document on the NSA’s intelligence relationship with New Zealand, the GSCB’s cyber operations are described as it’s “highest priority”.

The new documents follow earlier revelations by the Intercept and the New Zealand Herald that New Zealand was spying on its neighbours in the Pacific region, and had targeted island nations including Nauru, Tuvalu, Kiribati, Samoa, Vanuatu and the Solomon Islands.

New Zealand’s prime minister, John Key, said he stood by an earlier promise he made to resign if his country’s intelligence service had conducted mass surveillance on its citizens, but has continued to deny it has occurred.

