During 50 perplexing days, government agencies and corporations fell victim to very visible and embarrassing attacks. Over the weeks two sides of LulzSec emerged: One agitating for social justice and fighting 'the establishment', and the other ego-driven and seeking to make a name for itself.

There were the hacks which were at face-value purely for the bragging rights: The repeated breach of Sony's security and then the hacking of Nintendo. Then there was the attack on that classic authority figure: The CIA followed by the hacking of Arizona Police in the name of opposition to that US state's laws and stance on illegal immigrants.

Following a self-imposed hiatus the group re-emerged with a vengeance, attacking News International's Sun tabloid website and more recently suggestions have emerged of the hacking of some 10,000 PayPal accounts in an apparent revenge attack for that company's decision to stop payments to WikiLeaks.

But, of course, LulzSec is not alone. More than any other hacktivist group in recent memory Anonymous has also made a name for itself with some very high profile hacks -- in particular attacking Visa, MasterCard, PayPal and security firm HBGary Federal in defence of whistleblower site WikiLeaks.

More recently the group has released a 'restricted' document from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and documents from government security contractor ManTech.