Can Coinbase be hacked?

[stompix]

Hypothetically, any website can be hacked.

The question is how hard is it to do so.

For big, trusted companies like Coinbase, I think it is very unlikely someone will figure out how to hack them.

Big? Trusted?
How did you already come up with these words?
Have they existed for such a long period to label them as secure and trusted?

Also,far bigger and older companies have been hacked to promote Coinbase as impenetrable.

[Sephera]

Is a password something like this complex enough

Akasha#5123&7623

[Harley997]

i dont think coinbase is safe at all. no hosted wallet is safe.

keep coins with 3rd parties at your own peril!

[Zombie123]

It seems they have an API vulnerability. Several accounts have been hacked.. So what is the safest way to store Bitcoin.. Paper wallet.. and if there is fire thats gone too ?

[taipo]

Is a password something like this complex enough

Akasha#5123&7623

Your password works out in theory to be a 104.87 bit password ( bits of entropy ), so thats a fairly difficult to crack password ( although I would not have so many numbers in a row like that ).

Theoretically, any password can be bruteforced, but just not in the real world.

example: Your password cracked in 58 years....
( 94^16 / 2 ) / ( 10^22 ) / 60 / 60 / 24 / 365.25 = 58 years at a 10 Sextillion hashes per second bruteforcing it.

Attackers are going to focus on the easy hacks first before ever trying out bruteforcing passwords. APIs, installable wallets, through to the yea old database code injection hacks would be the place most of them would start.

[coinboss4life]

no

[Dennis7777]

no

You really think so? lol

[javidjamae]

Yes, because the site itself could be hacked, not through an individuals account, but through various attacks through insecure code and services on coinbase itself.

[jwray]

I just use coinbase as a conduit for converting between BTC and USD.  I wouldn't use it as long term storage for significant quantities of currency because that increases the risk of shit happening.

[Biodom]

I see a bit too much emphasis on wallet security with some gut wrenching stories about how someone made a super secure wallet and then deleted all keys. I think reliable recovery (have wallet encrypted and backed up in dropbox, email, flash, etc) is much more important on "average" than concerns about security. People are constantly losing massive amounts of bitcoins through the loss of private keys. Coinbase is pretty good at security, but you don't have to store all of your coins there.

One additional important point: paper wallet and "change" address conundrum.
Example: you made a paper wallet with 10BTC in it, then used private keys to send 2 BTC to someone. Do you think that 8 BTC are still in your paper wallet? Nope, they are in your "change" address and this confounded many people before.

[virtcurnc]

Any online site has the possibility of being hacked.  Risk -vs- Convenience on our part. 
Do not put all your eggs into one basket, or all of your coins in one online wallet, exchange, etc...

[Dennis7777]

I see a bit too much emphasis on wallet security with some gut wrenching stories about how someone made a super secure wallet and then deleted all keys. I think reliable recovery (have wallet encrypted and backed up in dropbox, email, flash, etc) is much more important on "average" than concerns about security.

Indeed, it is always suggested to both encrypt your wallet and make multiple backups.

Example: you made a paper wallet with 10BTC in it, then used private keys to send 2 BTC to someone. Do you think that 8 BTC are still in your paper wallet? Nope, they are in your "change" address and this confounded many people before.

It depends.
For some wallets, you can adjust the setting to "disable" the use of "change addresses".
So, in your example, the wallet will automatically create a tx which send 2 BTC out and 8 BTC "change" back to the original address.

For other wallets, you can still put your own address as a recipient and create the above tx manually (2 BTC out, 8 BTC back to yourself).

[HASHRA]

Would be really hard to do... but yes. Anything is hackable in some way if it is online.

I would never keep a large amount online.

[Sonny]

Can Coinbase be hacked? Definitely.

All those big tech companies like Google, Yahoo, Facebook, Twitter have been hacked previously, what makes you think Coinbase cannot be hacked?

[banaltcoin]

Yes it can be hacked. every online wallet can be hacked

[ttkool]

mobile sms can hack, password too.
But it is very expensive to hack sms.
hacking password is very much depends on its complexity.
And of course viruses - they like windows and windows like them.

Why do you say it's expensive to hack sms?

What we need is eyelock myris retina scanner. 

[ASFx]

I wouldnt worry about it. Always use 2FA on your account. Coinbase keeps most of their coins in cold storage so even if they got hacked, they wouldn't lose much.

[jamesb777]

Anything can be hacked though they store most of their funds in offline cold wallets which mitigates risk greatly. It's more likely your computer gets compromised giving the attacker access to your account.

[U1TRA_L0RD]

I heard Electrum is a good Bitcoin Client, Check it out if you want.

[Sonny]

I heard Electrum is a good Bitcoin Client, Check it out if you want.

Yup, Electrum is pretty good.
It is easy to use and there is no need to store all the block data.