That's not what happened here. They did extensive infiltration of computer networks, including the US military. They exfiltrated source code from those networks

That's not what happened here. They did extensive infiltration of computer networks, including the US military. They exfiltrated source code from those networks and sold it and used stolen hardware schematics to make clones of unreleased hardware. They did not attempt to let the targeted companies know so they could improve their security. They were hacking for profit.