No doubt there are some professional cyber criminal groups like ones from North Korea, but I seriously doubt that most of high-profile attacks even cost $10-100

No doubt there are some professional cyber criminal groups like ones from North Korea, but I seriously doubt that most of high-profile attacks even cost $10-100k. I mean you could say that if salary of random black hat researcher from Turkey, ex-USSR or Nigeria was $100,000 / year. But they obviously have no salary whatsoever and just trying and trying until they finally find suitable target. Most likely all that was used is $50 / month server for nmap and other tools, bunch of $3 / month VPNs. Or might be everything that was needed is $10 for a eSim and one scam call. And of course a lot of time of a person who can't get properly paid job anyway. Obviously might be only few people succeed, but in the end each particular attack cost peanuts.