LulzSec disbands following Battlefield Heroes breach

Hacker group releases 500,000 user names from EA's free-to-play shooter before declaring its 50-day virtual rampage over.

The past month has seen the hacker group Lulz Security (aka LulzSec) attack a variety of game companies, including Nintendo, Bethesda Softworks, Epic Games, CCP Games, and Mojang. Now, the group has announced its 50-day virtual rampage has come to a close and that the organization itself has disbanded.

Hacker group LulzSec has apparently disbanded after 50 days of attacks.

"We are Lulz Security, and this is our final release, as today marks something meaningful to us," the group--which also calls itself the Lulz Boat--said in a statement. "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 all love."

The statement concluded, "So with those last thoughts, it's time to say bon voyage. 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. If anything, we hope we had a microscopic impact on someone, somewhere. Anywhere."

That said, LulzSec fired a parting salvo by hacking the site for Electronic Arts' free-to-play shooter Battlefield Heroes. The group released some 500,000 accounts with username and password combinations from the beta for the Digital Illusions CE-developed game, as well as bringing down the game's site.

In a brief statement on the official Battlefield Heroes website, EA confirmed a "security breach" by an unnamed party. However, it said that "to the best of our knowledge, it appears that no personal data was compromised--no emails, account history, credit card numbers or payment methods."

LulzSec's announcement comes a week after a 19-year-old Briton was arrested on suspicion of being part of the group. However, LulzSec used its Twitter account to deny any connection to the man.