If it required the wrench, it was at least un-hackable enough. Part of the reason for remote hacking is to avoid alerting the hacked party to what's going on, which is obviously failed by the time you're hitting them with a wrench.
At the end of the day, you want the data. Sure, it's much more convenient to get the data from a device, but if you had to get it somewhere else, the data is obtainable.