I know of several cases of reverse engineering of a bunch of hardware where the hardware is only available to a very limited subset of professionals. To gain access you either need to join that class and break the terms under which the devices are provided, get someone else to break the terms they agreed to or to steal a device (which for obvious reasons is at a somewhat different level than breach of terms and conditions). It is pretty clear that these restrictions exist to avoid reverse engineering of a - trivial - protection that makes making compatible products impossible, and which in turn protects a non-trivial revenue stream.
Apple is not really all that different. If they believe that suing to prevent reverse engineering is going to stop the bad guys they are delusional, I suspect that they are fully aware of this and are engaging in a very expensive bit of theater here: the NSO Group is not going to be overly impressed by this, whether they win or lose the case. If they lose they will be open to a damage claim, which in turn will have to be enforced through a court in a different country, if they win Apple will lose far more than just this case, they will lose the battle against everybody that wishes to engage in reverse engineering.
Another thing I suspect is that Apple is either very much concerned about the image/reputation damage, their supposedly highly secure platform/environment appears to be less secure than Apple wanted you to believe and a click-through EULA is not going to impress a law breaking entity, they probably should have anticipated that. And Apple may believe that other law breaking entities are going to stop doing their thing if they win this lawsuit, I'm a bit more pessimistic about that. Legal action is not a good way to recover from a technical failure, Apple needs to update their threat model and act accordingly.
Apple is not really all that different. If they believe that suing to prevent reverse engineering is going to stop the bad guys they are delusional, I suspect that they are fully aware of this and are engaging in a very expensive bit of theater here: the NSO Group is not going to be overly impressed by this, whether they win or lose the case. If they lose they will be open to a damage claim, which in turn will have to be enforced through a court in a different country, if they win Apple will lose far more than just this case, they will lose the battle against everybody that wishes to engage in reverse engineering.
Another thing I suspect is that Apple is either very much concerned about the image/reputation damage, their supposedly highly secure platform/environment appears to be less secure than Apple wanted you to believe and a click-through EULA is not going to impress a law breaking entity, they probably should have anticipated that. And Apple may believe that other law breaking entities are going to stop doing their thing if they win this lawsuit, I'm a bit more pessimistic about that. Legal action is not a good way to recover from a technical failure, Apple needs to update their threat model and act accordingly.