Hacker Group Calls It Quits After 50 Day Spree

In sports teams and individual athletes often find it is hard to top a great season. Computer hacking group LulzSec has enjoyed something of a banner season this spring and summer, having successfully hacked into the CIA, the US Senate, Nintendo, Sony and Disney Corp.

However rather than try to outdo itself, the loosely-knit group, which is thought to have been formed as a spinoff of Anonymous, has decided to disband itself. LulzSec issued a statement late last week indicating that the group had only ever intended to operate for 50 days. It's mission apparently was to bring new life to something called the AntiSec movement. AntiSec is a movement that stands in opposition to the computer security industry.

According to LulzSec's statement the hacktivist group was successful in this end and therefore no longer feels the need to continue its activity (Not sure how that excuse will go over with federal authorities, the group did succeed in bringing down the CIA's website after all).

The disbanding of LulzSec is unlikely to cause much of a dip in the amount of cybercrime and computer hacking that takes place anyway. There has been something of an epidemic of self-styled "hacktivism" following in the wake of the Julian Assange arrest. Anonymous are by far the most active of these groups. While LulzSec's run was star-spangled, it was relatively short compared to Anonymous who've been around for years.

LulzSec, who never perpetrated any kind of for-profit cyber-security breaches, issued a typically irreverent statement upon announcing their discontinuation of activity, saying, "For the past 50 days we've been disrupting and exposing corporations, governments, often the general population itself, and quite possibly everything in between, just because we could. All to selflessly entertain others - vanity, fame, recognition, all of these things are shadowed by our desire for that which we love."

Don't hold you breath however if you think the brains behind LulzSec are going to quietly return to their jobs in the stockroom of your local Apple Store. Hacker groups break up like rock bands do, often reforming in a few years time or teaming up with former members of other groups to form "Supergroups."

'70s rock had its Emerson, Lake and Palmer and computer security networks may soon be faced with its hacker group equivalent; Anonymous, Lulz and Passcodes or something to that effect.

So keep your firewalls up and be ready to hold those lighters aloft!