Does the US conduct offensive cyber operations like this? I feel like we never hear about them in the news.
All nations do. It's become very normal. On the surface relations are nice and respectful. But we even spy on our allies behind closed doors. Take the case of Germany, that became public knowledge because of wikileaks. We had Angela Merkel's office wiretapped, among other things[1]. After it became known, they hardly responded past some internal investigations. I think their Senate switched to storing documents offli…
Some are too poor (take your pick). Others are rich, but small (the Vatican). Most just don't care enough to prioritise it over better things they could be doing.
And then, there are countries that simply consider the US an ally, and consider it morally dubious or practically unpromising to spy on them.
Add this up, and I'd be willing to give at least 10:1 odds it's one of a list of maybe ten suspects, even when adjusted for GDP or population.
As an aside, I'd really be curious why this "everyone does it" is used anytime something like this comes up? Is it just macho "I don't have friends but there are useful idiots that consider themselves my friend" talk? Is it nihilistic/cynical pretentiousness? International whataboutism to defend one's team?
Because it certainly isn't based on any actual data. If you add up offensive hacking by the USA, China, Russia, Israel, and maybe two or three others, you're pretty well done with the full list, but still close to nations short, where is the number of nations that exist.