My headcanon at this point is that the spymasters know about the security binary[0], and have decided that the threat of going dark is worse than the threat of getting pwned with their own NOBUS[1] exploits. Better to have everyone be vulnerable.
I do know at one point Apple had special Korean iPhone SKUs with no physical camera installed, I have no clue if those are still being made. Samsung probably did the same thing. The problem is that, aside from just removing hardware, there's no particular special software configuration that you can do to make the device more secure. Every good idea out there is either already being done on the consumer versions of these devices, or is an optional feature you can already enable on a stock device with MDM software. The security on phones is already pretty good, albeit at the cost of freedom for enthusiasts and tinkerers.
[0] Binary as in gender, not as in untrusted.
[1] US intelligence term that stands for "NObody But US" and is equivalent to "0day".
I do know at one point Apple had special Korean iPhone SKUs with no physical camera installed, I have no clue if those are still being made. Samsung probably did the same thing. The problem is that, aside from just removing hardware, there's no particular special software configuration that you can do to make the device more secure. Every good idea out there is either already being done on the consumer versions of these devices, or is an optional feature you can already enable on a stock device with MDM software. The security on phones is already pretty good, albeit at the cost of freedom for enthusiasts and tinkerers.
[0] Binary as in gender, not as in untrusted.
[1] US intelligence term that stands for "NObody But US" and is equivalent to "0day".