It could have been deliberate, at the behest of a 3-letter US agency for example.
No, this is more likely the result of a test or some annoying procedure during development that needed more access than the device would normally provide - I've seen it before, and I think most people who work with embedded systems at least at some point in their career have done something that would be bad if it ended up in production units.
Intelligence work is so much easier when one stops reasoning in terms of groups.