Often it can be like that. This a case where the kind of attacker seems highly relevant, though. Imagine a group like Shiny Hunters were the ones to steal these vulns from F5, you'd know if they hit your F5s because they'd have already dumped all your databases and bragged about it. The attacker being a "nation-state" warrants a more careful investigation of historical activity if you're the kind of organization that gets targeted by espionage motivated attacks.