eliot higgins and other journalists associated with bellingcat, a group researching the shoot down of malaysia airlines flight 17 over ukraine, were targeted by numerous spearphishing emails. the messages were fake gmail security notices with bit.ly and tinycc shortened urls. according to threatconnect, some of the phishing emails had originated from servers that fancy bear had used in previous attacks elsewhere. bellingcat is best known for having accused russia of being culpable for the shoot down of mh17, and is frequently derided in the russian media.