Solaris Allegedly Taken Over by Kraken, a Darknet Marketplace
Solaris, a significant marketplace for narcotics and other illegal items, was targeted in a hacking attempt by a similar organization, Kraken, not to be confused with the well-known cryptocurrency exchange of the same name.
After law enforcement agencies shut down Hydra, the former market leader, in April last year, seizing its servers in Germany and detaining an accused operator in Russia, Solaris managed to achieve between 20% and 25% market share, according to Elliptic estimations.
This week, the blockchain forensics firm claimed that visitors to the onionsite had been routed to Kraken since Friday, January 13. The latter claimed to have taken control of Solaris' infrastructure, Gitlab repository, and source code, as well as to have restricted the operating system's bitcoin wallets.
Kraken is another dark web player that, like Solaris and Hydra, is targeting the Russian-language underground market. The unlawful trading websites are also suspected of having additional connections to Russia.
Solaris, for example, is said to have utilised the services of one of Russia's "patriotic" hacking organizations. After Russia invaded Ukraine in late February 2022, the pro-Kremlin Killnet is notorious for executing distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) assaults.
This isn't the first time an attempt has been made to penetrate Solaris. According to a December report, Ukrainian-born cyber intelligence expert Alex Holden claimed to have broken into the marketplace and obtained part of the bitcoin delivered to dealers utilizing the site as well as its proprietors.
Holden said that with the assistance of his cybersecurity firm, he was able to redirect 1.6 BTC by precisely targeting a wallet used for crypto exchange transactions. The Bitcoin was eventually handed to a charity in Kyiv.
