According to cryptanalytics firm Elliptic, Solaris, a major marketplace on the Dark Web, was hit by a rival The Russian-linked platform is believed to have conquered up to a fifth of the illegal market before the hack, trying to occupy the space vacated by the busted Hydra.
Solaris is said to have been taken over by a darknet marketplace called Kraken
Solaris, a leading marketplace for drugs and other illegal products, not to be confused with the well-known cryptocurrency exchange of the same name, has been the target of a hacking attack carried out by a similar company, Kraken.
Last April, after law enforcement authorities shut down Hydra, the former leader of the business, seized its servers in Germany, and arrested its alleged operator in Russia, Solaris was able to gain a 20% to 25% market share, according to estimates cited by Elliptic The company has been.
This week, a blockchain forensics firm reported that since Friday, January 13, anyone accessing the Onion site has been forwarded to Kraken. The latter claims to have taken control of the Solaris infrastructure, Gitlab repository, source code, and blocked its bitcoin wallet.
Kraken is another player in the dark web space and, like Solaris and Hydra, targets the Russian segment of the underground market. Illegal trading platforms are also suspected of other ties to Russia.
For example, Solaris is believed to have used the services of one of Russia’s “patriotic” hacker groups. The pro-Kremlin Killnet is known to have launched a distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack after Russia invaded Ukraine at the end of February 2022.
This is not the first attempt to break into Solaris. Alex Holden, a Ukrainian-born cyber intelligence expert, allegedly hacked into the marketplace and obtained some of the bitcoins sent to dealers and their owners who use the site, according to a December report.
Aided by his cybersecurity firm, Holden said he was able to divert 1.6 BTC, specifically targeting wallets used for crypto exchange transactions; BTCwas able to be diverted; and BTC
was used for crypto exchange transactions. This cryptocurrency was then donated to a charity in Kiev.
Image credits: Shutterstock, Pixabay, Wiki Commons