Many of the recent attacks by Anonymous and splinter group LulzSec appear to be focused on embarrassing the victims, not about outright data theft or sabotage. Even so, "they [law enforcement officials] are certainly going to want to make an example of anyone they can bring in," Shaul said.

Jaikumar Vijayan covers data and privacy issues, financial services security and e-voting for Computerworld. Follow Jaikumar on Twitter at or subscribe to . His e-mail address is jvijayan@computerworld.com.