The Mequon, Wisconsin resident is playing dark web Robin Hood: His team at Hold Security has hacked into one of Russia’s largest online drug markets, dubbed Solaris, and diverted crypto due to dealers and the site’s owners to a charity, Enjoying Life, which provides humanitarian aid across Ukraine.Holden, who left Kyiv as a teenager in the 1980s amidst fallout of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, declined to reveal how he did it, but said he was able to take control of much of the internet infrastructure powering Solaris, a number of administrator accounts running the illicit bazaar, website source code and a database of its users, as well as drop off locations for drug deliveries.“Maybe the Kremlin won’t defend their country’s drug trade and fix the drug problems instead of invading Ukraine.”The Killnet connectionThe attacks could have an impact beyond the dark web drug trade in Russia.Analysts at U.S. cybersecurity firm ZeroFox said earlier this year it appeared Solaris was paying for Killnet’s DDoS services.In an October interview with Russian publication RT, a Killnet founder known as KillMilk said his gang had “huge support” from Solaris’ “daring and strong team.” After pledging to hack American government agencies in response to U.S. support for Ukraine, he said he’d known the Solaris team “for a very long time.”Andras Toth-Czifra, an analyst at cyber intelligence company Flashpoint, has been tracking Killnet’s operations over the last year."