Apple and Google don't sell insecure cheap phones, but lots of other manufacturers do. I suppose organized crime doesn't systematically take advantage of that

Apple and Google don't sell insecure cheap phones, but lots of other manufacturers do. I suppose organized crime doesn't systematically take advantage of that because cheap phones are cheap, and the people who own them are poor. You don't get that much benefit from pwning them. Alternatively, maybe organized crime does take advantage of them but we haven't heard about it. They could have a giant botnet of them for all we know.