

Malware targeting individuals rather than servers do not need privilege escalation. They just need to run as the user and swipe cookies/credentials/wallets etc. Privilege escalation would allow them to do catastrophic damage but that’s not the point in that case.
In most “free” countries digitally cracking or cloning phones or trying to scare the owner to unlock as well as remote exploitation is legal. Beating people up in interrogation rooms isn’t. Either way, GOS has a panic mode that will immediately erase the phone in a cryptographically secure fashion.