It's not strange. They can read technology news like anyone else, and vendors of security tools do sales campaigns like any other industry. Media says 'cybercriminals are getting away with it using this one weird trick,' people grumble about the police being useless, police say they can't stop the cybercriminals without spyware, media runs story about sympathetic pensioners losing everything to scammers because police are letting them run free, voters demand politicians do something etc etc. etc.

Also, y'all need to recognize that unbreakable personal security/ privacy/ paranoia is just not the default social position in most societies. There isn't a big conspiracy, it's a reflection of social mores we disagree with, either ideologically or through recognition that policing is often ineffective and corrupt.