Bulgaria cyber 'elves' fight Kremilin and cruelty

A BULGARIAN group of dozens of cyber activists at first clubbed together to battle Russian disinformation, but they have since found other foes - like animal abusers.

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They call themselves the BG Elves, which both refers to the kind-hearted characters of Scandinavian mythology and hints at a rivalry with the internet's malicious trolls.

The collective of about 70 anonymous cyber security experts have made a name for themselves by creating problems for their adversaries.

One of their latest efforts was helping an animal rights NGO uncover evidence that led to the March arrest of a woman and a man accused of selling videos online of hundreds of animals being tortured to death.

"Our work was crucial, because for the first time a crime was solved in Bulgaria based on OSINT data, proving that our efforts can produce concrete results," software developer Petko Petkov, the Elves' only public face, said.

OSINT refers to open-source intelligence, which is information gathered with digital investigation techniques like reverse image search and geolocation.