How do hackers hack into iPhones?

The iPhone of itself is a very hard device to hack. Because of the sandboxed nature of the applications you can install and the rigorous limits on applications through official channels malware is virtually impossible. Of course, you can install unofficial apps, but any access outside the app has to be allowed by the user. Malware is not any form of option to gain access.

Brute-forcing a passcode is simply not doable – just look at the FBI vs. Apple case going on right now. (If you’re not familiar with this – any brute force techniques require an OS backdoor to be installed – and Apple will not have anything to do with a security compromise.

The encryption is too strong to break – with a hardcoded key related to the device chip (feel free to comment a correction if this is incorrect) there is no way to just transfer the data across and then proceed to break the key, as far as my understanding goes.

Phishing is something that will work on an iPhone. Although arguably this isn’t hacking the iPhone as such, but gaining web/banking/other web credentials.

Remote access of an iPhone? I wish. Lacking a command line interface of any sort, good luck trying to gain any access without that passcode, which can only be entered through touch-screen input. There’s no way for a passcode to be entered electronically, and the device is almost unusable without it.

If you have physical access… You could do the odd bit of maths homework? Time something? Or call someone using Siri? This is assuming the iPhone owner has still got control center and Siri enabled on the lock screen. Disable this and you can really do next to nothing except call an emergency number, disable the phone as a prank (pretty bad prank if I’m honest), or take a bunch of silly photos of yourself.

Essentially, the iPhone is a dream in terms of security, with no way I can think of to gain access, and those that get thought of are generally patched relatively quickly by Apple when they do come up. This comes at the cost of being a pain in the ass for customisation. But, you can’t have everything I guess.