The Philippine Online Chronicles

After months of attacking several prominent websites including the Central Intelligence Agency, U.S. Senate, British Police, Sony, AOL and Nintendo, a group of rouge hackers known as LulzSec (LulzSecurity) announced that it is disbanding.

LulzSec posted this press release on its official Twitter feed:

“Again, behind the mask, behind the insanity and mayhem, we truly believe in the AntiSec movement. We believe in it so strongly that we brought it back, much to the dismay of those looking for more anarchic lulz. We hope, wish, even beg, that the movement manifests itself into a revolution that can continue on without us.

The support we’ve gathered for it in such a short space of time is truly overwhelming, and not to mention humbling. Please don’t stop. Together, united, we can stomp down our common oppressors and imbue ourselves with the power and freedom we deserve.”

The group further said, “Our planned 50 day cruise has expired, and we must now sail into the distance, leaving behind – we hope – inspiration, fear, denial, happiness, approval, disapproval, mockery, embarrassment, thoughtfulness, jealousy, hate, even love.” (Read the full statement here).

As a parting shot, LulzSec released some 457.84MB worth of data including internal information from AOL, AT&T, FBI, office networks of corporations like Disney, EMI, Universal and several other sites. The data was uploaded to Piratebay.com, Saturday night.

The abrupt dissolution came a few days after LulzSec threatened to escalate its cyber attacks and steal classified information from governments, banks and other major establishments, according to a report by Globe and Mail.

So far, LulzSec released around 750,000 usernames and passwords gathered from a number of different sites that it hacked. Some of the email address are listed here.

Last June 16, it attacked the CIA website through packet flooding and announced it on Twitter. “Tango down. cia.gov for the lulz.” The group reported used DDoS attack to crash CIA's website www.cia.gov

LulzSec previously claimed responsibility for the attacks on the following websites:

• May 7: US X Factor contestant database

• May 10: Fox.com user passwords

• May 15: Database listing locations of UK ATM machines

• May 23: Sonymusic Japan website

• May 30: US broadcaster PBS. Staff logon information

• June 2: Sonypictures.com user information

• June 3: Infragard website (FBI affiliated organisation)

• June 3: Nintendo.com

• June 10: Pron.com pornographic website

• June 13: Senate.gov - website of US Senate

• June 13: Bethesda software website

• June 14: EVE Online, League of Legends, The Escapist and others

• June 16: CIA website

• June 16: Random releases of 62,000 emails and passwords

• June 25: AT&T, AOL, website Hackforums.net, details of the Battlefield Heroes game

Earlier this month, white hat hackers known as Jester, took down LulzSec's website, compromising the supposed real identities of individuals behind LulzSec. While LulzSec gave no reason for the disbandment, ZDNet.com post several assumptions behind LulzSec's disbanding.

Last week, British authorities arrested 19-year old Ryan Leary, a suspected member of the group.

LulzSec has sought publicity and conducted conversation with the public through its Twitter account. Observers believe it’s an offshoot of Anonymous, a larger, more loosely organized group that attempts to mobilize hackers for attacks on targets it considers immoral, like oppressive Middle Eastern governments and opponents of the document-distribution site WikiLeaks.

The group warned that the the public should be more afraid of unannounced hackings.