26 June 2011 - It was probably getting a bit too hot for LulzSec, a group of hackers that have caused a lot of sleepless nights for data security experts in recent weeks.

LulzSec said late Saturday it would break up, reports PC World, but they planned to go out with a bang. "In what it said was its final act of mayhem," wrote PC World, "it publicly unloaded a trove of documents containing a significant amount of compressed data." The group's farewell came via Twitter.

PC World quoted LulzSec communique as saying, "Our planned 50-day cruise has expired, and we must now sail into the distance...our crew of six wishes you a happy 2011."

The FBI, as well as investigative agencies from the U.S. and other nations, have been in hot pursuit of the LulzSec internet criminals. British authorities arrested a suspected member of LulzSec near London recently. Even other hackers were trying to uncover the identities and whereabouts of LulzSec's members.

The Telegraph UK says that LulzSec claimed to have "accomplished its mission to disrupt corporate and government bodies" and "has claimed responsibility for security breaches at targets including the CIA, Sony and the US Senate. Before disbanding it issued one last batch of data which included internal documents from internet giant AOL and the US phone company AT&T." More about LulzSec at The Telegraph...

Why has LulzSec been wreaking havoc on the Internet? LulzSec claims they did it "just because we could." I get this uneasy feeling that we have not heard the last of LulzSec. Even if the group never operates under that name again, some of it members could continue the misdeeds. Worse, copycat digital criminals around the world will undoubtedly be inspired by LulzSec.