LulzSec [009]
Posted on Monday, Jun 30, 2025
Show Notes
For 50 days in mid-2011 the hacker world and even the wider pop-culture world was enthralled by a rampant series of brazen hacks conducted by a splinter group of anonymous who called themselves LulzSec. They claimed it was “just for the lulz”, but as we explore in this episode, there was much more to this than simply the lulz.
Wikipedia - LulzSec
Wired - Anonymous’ Most Notorious Hacker Is Back, and He’s Gone Legit
BBC - LulzSec hacker helps FBI stop over 300 cyber attacks
BBC - LulzSec hacker group handed jail sentences
Purdue University - Hacktivism: The Short Life of LulzSec
Parmy Olson’s book - “We are Anonymous”
Chester Wisniewski speaking on LulzSec for the BBC - 2011
Hosts
Chester Wisniewski (He/Him)
Chester Wisniewski is an old hat to information security having practiced the art professionally for more than 25 years. Starting out with a 300 baud modem in the 80s he became obsessed with exploring the world’s phone networks (phreaking?) which inevitably led to bulletin boards and early internet access in the mid-80s. The trust inherent in the system seemed absurd and this inspired Chester to pursue how we might build systems less prone to abuse. The rest is history.
Ben Verschaeren (He/Him)
Ben has been in Information Technology for two decades starting at the age of 14. Recently described by a senor executive as an “Adult Dennis the Menace”, Ben’s always up for a bit of cyber mayhem. Having worked across, Managed Services Providers, two of Australia’s largest Enterprises and an almost decade at a Security Vendor. Ben’s experience spans Wintel System Administration, Network Administration, Penetration Testing, and Software Development.