If your hacking a Saboteur like myself then all you need to do is empty your research and your pretty safe.
Although their is always the chance I'll counter-hack you back and get a good planet. I have never even gotten a halfway decent planet on a critical hack or counter-hack.
Dan did you mean to have a easy work around when people go hacking? One player will hack me when I'm asleep and even though every other time my ship counter-hack's him back since his research is empty I get nothing. You could almost say he farms me at night but the amount he gets doesn't add up enough for me to say that. But it's enough to be annoying.

I wish if a counter-hack occurs their could be a line in the program code that adjusts for zero research on the players ship. Maybe the research points of the player goes negative or it switches to a planet hack.

I suppose not many will like this, if so just let thread fall off and die.

If your problem is mainly hackers, uninstall a weapon, defense and hull to not enough to make you an easy target, but enough to allow you to add some cloaking before you go to sleep.

what if the counter hack was to come from thier next research shipment?

my current cloak is 3923. What's yours?

I like this idea, kinda like creating a negative RP for the player because you got his RP's.

My cloak is horribly low actually, I'm short on decks and am more built for raiding than hacking.
Auto planet hack based on 0 research seems a bit extreme to me and I don't think anyone will be going into negative research.
What if you got a badge for a successful counter hack for 0 research?
To me is seems your issue is that players that hack spend the hacked points they got right away and have no possible loss on a counter hack.
What if hacked research points couldn't be spent for 1 hour, giving you the chance to counter hack them back?