When? Never, because this is overwhelmingly likely to be propaganda to manufacture consent for another war.
Remember 20 years ago when they said Iran was only a few days away from being a nuclear armed power? or when they said that same thing 30 years ago?
They keep trying to make everyone terrified of russia and china and keep talking like they want to kill everyone else on earth.
CNN was one of the outlets that said "WMDs in Iraq!" for my entire childhood and most of my teenage years. That alone should be enough to never trust them again.
Don't know why you're being down voted, you're correct. It's also to be expected for these foreign governments to sponsor hacking groups to do this kind of stuff.
What gets me is that when Russia does it, everybody loses their mind but China gets a free pass. Most likely because they pretty much own the US economy at this point.
The article described the hackers having access to what’s called Lawful Intercept capabilities. In the telecom equipment I’ve worked with, this takes the form of voice call tapping, full packet capture of data, or just a capture of connections made.
If they had unfettered access to this functionality, they could have spied on anyone at length. Government officials, C suite people at companies…anyone.