LULZSEC HACKER JACK DAVIS, AKA TOPIARY, RELEASED ON BAIL

District Judge Howard Riddle released 18-year old alleged LulzSec hacker Jack Davis on bail Monday morning. Davis hacked under the name “Topiary” online and served as the public face of LulzSec, often publishing press releases and status updates on the group’s Twitter account, before he was arrested on July 27th. The news debunks earlier reports thatauthorities had been duped into arresting an the wrong man.

Authorities in the U.K. said they discovered personal information for more than 750,000 people on Davis’ computers. Davis has been charged with hacking the Sun, Times, Sony and the Serious Organized Crime agency. Davis’ lawyers are highlighting his role as a press secretary for LulzSec and have argued that Davis did not participate in the attacks directly. Davis was released on bail but cannot access the Internet from any device, including from smartphones, The Financial Times said.

LULZSEC 'TOPIARY' ARRESTED

The Metropolitan Police Service announced on Wednesday that it has arrested a 19-year old hacker suspected to be a member of both “Anonymous Operations” and “Lulz Security,” also known as “LulzSec.” The hacker, who went by the name Topiary, served as the publicist of both hacker groups and often posted press releases and statements on Twitter. His apartment in the Shetland Islands, Scotland is currently being searched and Topiary is on his way to a police station in London. A second 17-year old person in Lincolnshire, England is also being interviewed but has not yet been arrested. The FBI began raiding apartments and arresting a number of people believed to be involved with Anonymous and LulzSec on July 19th. The hacker groups responded to the arrests and said there is “nothing – absolutely nothing – you can possibly to do make us stop.” During that time, Topiary is believed to have tweeted “Arresting people won’t stop us, FBI. We will only cease fire when you all wear shoes on your heads. That’s the only way this is ending,” from the official LulzSec Twitter account.

UNIVERSAL AND VIACOM HACKED LEAKING USERS PASSWORDS AND INFORMATION; ANTISEC CLAIMS RESPONSIBILITY

A hacking group named LulzSec made headlines recently for attacking high visibility targets, including Sony and the U.S. government. LulzSec announced earlier this week that it was stopping its operations, and rumor has it many of the members joined up with Anonymous’ “AntiSec” hacking group. Now that group is making its own headlines. On Tuesday AntiSec claimed responsibility for attacks against Universal and Viacom.

According to The Wall Street Journal, the hackers released personal data, including passwords, from the Universal Music Website. It also obtained and leaked information about Viacom’s network. It’s unclear how many users were affected by the security breach, although we hope to hear an official word from both firms in the near future.

LULZSEC LEAVES BEHIND ONE LAST PARTING SHOT WITH MALWARE, TROJANS AND VIRII

The small group of hackers known as Lulz Security, or simply “LulzSec,” would never disband without one final round of fun. BGR reported on Monday that the group’s reign of terror was coming to an end after 50 lul-filled days. During that period of time, LulzSec released data stolen in a series of online breaches with targets ranging from Sony to the U.S. Government.

In its coup de grâce, LulzSec released a stash of stolen data from a variety of targets, including AT&T, Disney and the U.S. Navy. But data obtained through online breaches wasn’t the only thing LulzSec stuffed into the file; a directory named “BootableUSB” also contained a variety of malware including trojans and worms. While “LulzSec” is no more and its notorious Twitter account now sits dormant, members of the well-known hacktivism group “Anonymous Operations” have confirmed that LulzSec is gone in name only — the six LulzSec members have been absorbed by Anonymous, according to the group’s official Twitter feed.

LULZSEC CALLS IT QUITS

After 50 days of wreaking cyber-caper havoc, Lulz Security says it's done and will sail into the horizon. The group has stolen mountains of personal data in a dozen different hacks, embarrassing law enforcement on both sides of the Atlantic while boasting about the stunts online.

The group's disbandment comes unexpectedly, and could be a sign of nerves in the face of law enforcement investigations. Rival hackers have also joined in the hunt, releasing information they say could point to the identities of the six-member group. One of the group's six members was interviewed by The Associated Press on Friday, and gave no indication that its work was ending.

LulzSec made its name by defacing the site of the U.S. Public Broadcasting Service, or PBS, with an article claiming that rapper Tupac Shakur was still alive. It has since claimed hacks on major entertainment companies, FBI partner organizations, a pornography website and the Arizona Department of Public Safety, whose documents were leaked to the Web late Thursday.

The hacking group stated "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," the LulzSec statement said. "All to selflessly entertain others — vanity, fame, recognition, all of these things are shadowed by our desire for that which we all love. The raw, uninterrupted, chaotic thrill of entertainment and anarchy. While we are responsible for everything that The Lulz Boat is, we are not tied to this identity permanently. The breeze is fresh and the sun is setting, so now we head for the horizon."

As a parting shot, LulzSec released a grab-bag of documents and login information apparently gleaned from gaming websites and corporate servers. The largest group of documents — 338 files — appears to be internal documents from AT&T Inc., detailing its buildout of a new wireless broadband network in the U.S. The network is set to go live this summer. An AT&T spokesman could not immediately confirm the authenticity of the documents.

LULZSEC DENIES LEADER ARRESTED

There are numerous reports claiming that the leader of the now infamous hacking group LulzSec has been arrested in the United Kingdom. According to London’s Metropolitan Police, the shadowy leader was a 19-year old responsible for hacking “a number of international businesses and intelligence agencies.” The group took responsibility for Sony’s recent massive security breach and has also targeted a number of high-visibility websites, including that of the Central Intelligence Agency, and has waged war on the U.S. government with another group dubbed Anonymous.

Despite the reports, however, LulzSec has denied that any of its members have been arrested. Early Tuesday morning the group tweeted: “Seems the glorious leader of LulzSec got arrested, it’s all over now… wait… we’re all still here! Which poor bastard did they take down?”

SEGA'S ONLINE PASS HACKED, PASSWORDS STOLEN

Sega Pass suffered a breach of its defenses on Thursday, which has now been identified to have affected a whopping 1.29 million users. Usernames, real names, birth dates, passwords, email addresses, pretty much everything has been snatched up by the malicious data thieves, with the important exception of credit / debit card numbers. We'd still advise anyone affected to keep a watchful eye on his or her banking transactions -- immediately after changing that compromised password, of course. In the meantime, Sega's keeping the Pass service offline while it rectifies the vulnerability; it'll be able to call on an unexpected ally in its search for the perpetrators in the form of LulzSec, a hacker group that boasted proudly about infiltrating Sony's network, but which has much more benevolent intentions with respect to Sega.

SONY PICTURES WEBSITE HACKED; 1 MILLION ACCOUNTS COMPROMISED

Hackers from a group called LulzSec announced on Thursday that they had breached sonypictures.com, the website belonging to Sony-owned studio Sony Pictures. The group claims to have compromised personal information belonging to over 1 million users, including user names, passwords, home addresses, dates of birth and other sensitive data.

The group also claims to have accessed 75,000 “music codes” and 3.5 million “music coupons.” LulzSec says it employed a simple SQL injection technique to access the data, and that Sony Pictures’ site was not secure and was therefore easy to breach.

The hackers did not have the resources to download all of the exposed data, but they say they did obtain samples in order to prove the authenticity of the attack.

This is the fourth breach of a Sony owned property in the last two months. The most famous being the Sony Playstation Network. Sony was forced to bring the site down while additional security measures were put in place.