So, my Coinbase account was hacked, bitcoin stolen, now what?

I check my email to find a message from Coinbase saying "You just sent 0.136 BTC to 12aW81234567890abcdefg..". I never initiated such a transaction. Obviously, I started freaking out a little bit. I log into my Coinbase account (which I felt had a strong password btw), to find my balance near zero. Just great. Thank goodness I hadn't linked a bank account in Coinbase yet, and that the stolen balance was less than $100, who knows what else may have been stolen. I filed a support ticket with Coinbase just hours after this occurred last night, but no response yet.

I'm distraught over this. A hacker can simply break into your account, steal your bitcoin by sending it off to his own account, and no one has to hold any type of accountability? Is there no way to trace, cancel, or reverse a transaction? Is there anything at all I can do?

> and no one has to hold any type of accountability? Is there no way to trace, cancel, or reverse a transaction? Is there anything at all I can do?

You can file a police report. If somebody stole your physical cash, what would you do?

Bitcoin advocates claim this is a feature, not a bug. They say bitcoin should be the digital equivalent of cash.

I don't know much about how Bitcoin works. But isn't one of the features of Bitcoin that you can make transfers super cheap? Wouldn't it be best to keep your Bitcoin "wallet" off any internet connected devices and then just make a transfer to Coinbase only when you need to sell Bitcoin to transfer back to your bank? I would think that it would be a bad idea to keep your Bitcoin stored anywhere except in a space you fully control and could keep safe. Though if you have malware on your computer which targets Bitcoin activity then I'm not sure there is much you could do.

Personally, I would probably get something like a Raspberry Pi (if it's beefy enough) with a Linux distro which runs straight from RAM just for Bitcoin transactions. So, every time you boot up, it's a totally new installation. You could make sure that your media that you are loading it from is ready only. Then enter your Bitcoin info, do your transaction and shut off the computer. Next time you boot it up, new installation again. With these distro's, you don't actually have to install Linux every time, they just run from a read only image typically. I use Puppy Linux.

This should do a lot to keep you safe from malware. Just using Linux makes you a little less of a target. Using a fresh install every time you boot up reduces your vulnerability window. I'm sure that if you are connected to the internet, anything could happen. If you use this method, you would probably need to be specifically targeted by someone who really knows what they are doing. There are easier targets out there. ;)

Did you have the two factor verification activated?

This is a reason why I never leave my BTC in Coinbase. As soon as my purchase goes through, I transfer the BTC to a paper wallet[1] or digital wallet that I control.

[1] https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Paper_wallet