The hacker group, LulzSec, announced its dissolution on Saturday, June 25, in a Twitter message to 280,000 of its followers. The publicity-seeking group had successfully hacked the websites of the CIA, the U.S. Senate, Britain’s Serious Organized Crime Agency, Sony, PBS, and other high-profile targets. Many do not understand why the group decided to break up or if they really did at all. There are a few theories as to why they did, at least, publicly, anyway: the law was closing in on them (they had been getting many looming threats of arrest); they were just bored; they picked disastrous fights with rival hacker groups; or they had simply run out of ideas.
Although, this hacker group is seemingly no longer around, there are many other, more seasoned groups like this one that can be even more harmful. The trick to reducing the chances of having your email or social networking profile hacked by such groups is to create a strong password. Mixing letters and numbers is a good start. Avoid using simple words or birth dates. You can use your birth date but mix it into a name. For example, let’s say you have a sister named Jane and her birthday is on March 22. Create a password like this: j3a2n2e. That’s the basic concept but as long as you can remember it, your regularly updated strong password will definitely help keep you more secure.
