Below is a news article from CNET about Nortel. The article reminded me the a book “The Most Dangerous Man in the World: The Explosive True Story of Julian Assange and the Lies, Cover-ups and Conspiracies He Exposed “ ( Amazon) This book was published April 11, 2011 and even there Julian told how they were hacking networks through NORTEL many many years ago.
It looks like, as time passed nothing has changed in Nortel 
. Have a look in the article:
Nortel Networks was the victim of a series of cyberattacks likely originating from China for almost 10 years, but the company ultimately failed to defend itself, says The Wall Street Journal.
Citing an internal investigation by former Nortel systems security adviser Brian Shields, the Journal (subscription required) found that hackers apparently based in China carried on a decade-long campaign of stealing technical papers, R&D reports, employee e-mails, and other sensitive documents from the network company.
By grabbing just seven passwords from top Nortel execs back in 2000, the hackers managed to gain access to the company's network and remotely control personal computers by flooding them with spyware.
Nortel eventually uncovered the hacked passwords and breach in 2004. In response, the company changed the seven passwords and kicked off an internal investigation, the Journal noted. But according to Shields, Nortel didn't bother to determine if any of its products were compromised and halted the investigation after six months due to a lack of solid leads.
The cyberattacks continued intermittently for the next several years. By that point Nortel itself was in trouble, forced to lay off staff, including Shields, and sell off assets to stay afloat. Filing for bankruptcy in 2009, Nortel also failed to disclose the network breach to potential buyers, said Shields.
When asked about the hacks by the Journal, one of Nortel's former CEOs, Mike Zafirovski, simply said that "People who looked at [the hacking] did not believe it was a real issue."
Nortel did not immediately respond to CNET's request for comment.