- Authorities had shut down Hydra, the prior leader in this sector, in April of last year.
- The Russian-speaking underground market is a primary focus for Kraken.
An organization called Kraken, not to be confused with the well-known cryptocurrency exchange of the same name, has hacked into Solaris, a major marketplace for narcotics and other illegal items.
Solaris reportedly gained between 20% and 25% market share after authorities shut down Hydra, the prior leader in this sector, in April of last year by seizing its servers in Germany and detaining an accused operator in Russia.
Russian-speaking Undermarket Primary Focus
The blockchain forensics business Elliptics said this week that as of Friday, January 13th, visitors to the onionsite have been redirected to Kraken. They said they had shut off Solaris’s bitcoin wallets and taken over the company’s infrastructure, Gitlab repository, and source code.
The Russian-speaking underground market is a primary focus for Kraken, another major participant in the dark web scene. It is believed that the unlawful trade sites have further linkages to Russia.
Solaris, for instance, may have hired the services of a Russian “patriotic” hacking organization. When Russia invaded Ukraine in late February 2022, the pro-Kremlin Killnet became notorious for initiating DDoS assaults against the nation.
This isn’t the first time Solaris has been attacked. According to an article published in December, a Ukrainian-born cyber intelligence analyst named Alex Holden claimed to have broken into the marketplace and stolen bitcoin that had been delivered to sellers utilizing the site and to its proprietors.
Holden said that, with the assistance of his cybersecurity firm, he was able to steal 1.6 BTC by hacking into a wallet used for crypto exchange transactions. Afterward, bitcoin was given to a good cause in Kyiv.
