Ways to protect yourself from an iPhone hack

That's why these pricey hacks are often kept under wraps by the people, or governments, who purchase them, Green said. The minute the world knows, it's only a matter of time before the hack is obsolete. The bugs are known as 'zero-day' exploits, corresponding with the fact that Apple will find out about a possible security issue in their software on the same day it'll work to patch it. 'If it's someone who is really sophisticated, they'll send you an invisible text message and then your phone is going to be compromised for awhile.' 'This is a very sophisticated set of hacks and oftentimes you won't even know this happened to you,' Green said. With this knowledge, hackers can install malware to get data from targetted sources. One form of a targetted hack works like this: Hackers exploit unknown flaws in the iOS programming that even its developers don't yet know about. Journalists and activists are most at risk for this kind of hack. The average person probably won't be singled out and remotely targeted by hackers because it's expensive, sometimes costing millions for hacks of newer phones, said Matthew Green, an associate professor at the Johns Hopkins Internet Security Institute.