New Zealand has been exposed running a widespread spying regime on Asian and Pacific countries as part of a world-spanning espionage alliance.

Transparency news agency The Intercept and the New Zealand Herald report they were shown files revealed by whistleblower Edward Snowden.

The files describe a regime of eavesdropping which includes intercepting data transferred between satellites and traffic moving through undersea cables, The Intercept reported.

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The New Zealand spying agency the Government Communications Security Bureau also uses a complex web of malware called Warrior Pride, a way of hacking into computers and smartphones to gather data, The Intercept reports.

Data is shared with the Five Eyes alliance, which includes Australia, the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom and New Zealand.

A document quoted by the Intercept states Five Eyes “provides [the NSA with] collection on China, Japanese/North Korean/Vietnamese/South American diplomatic communications, South Pacific Island nations, Pakistan, India, Iran, and Antarctica.”

In a separate disclosure, The Guardian revealed an Australian spy from the Defence Signals Directorate worked with New Zealand’s GCSB in 2009 for two years.

Meeting minutes quoted in The Guardian showed that the operative, who was not named, focused on increasing access to the South Pacific, and “closer partnering” with Australian and New Zealand intelligent services.

The GCSB acting director, Una Jagose, made a statement quoted in The Intercept and the New Zealand Herald on Monday which said: “The GCSB exists to protect New Zealand and New Zealanders. We have a foreign intelligence mandate. We don’t comment on speculation about matters that may or may not be operational. Everything we do is explicitly authorised and subject to independent oversight.”