> This is far from the first time a Western cybersecurity team has caught hackers from allied countries. Some companies, however, have a quiet policy of not pub

> This is far from the first time a Western cybersecurity team has caught hackers from allied countries. Some companies, however, have a quiet policy of not publicly exposing such hacking operations if both the security team and the hackers are considered friendly—for example if they are members of the “Five Eyes” intelligence alliance, which is made up of the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. Several members of Google’s security teams are veterans of Western intelligence agencies, and some have conducted hacking campaigns for these governments. > In some cases, security companies will clean up so-called “friendly” malware but avoid going public with it. Ah, this explains why if you follow security-related news, it feels like U.S. or “Western” countries never conduct offensive operations ever.