So farewell to Lulzsec, who burnt brightly but, it turns out, briefly in the firmament of cyber security with a rapid-fire series of cracks and thefts. The group did indeed bring the lulz, if only at mainstream media outlets trying to explain what “the lulz” meant.

The group’s announcement that it was dissolving encouraged speculation that it had taken fright at the heat it was drawing from US and UK law enforcement. At least two other hacker groups had tried to collect and reveal details of the group’s offline identities, and suggested that the group had little genuine hacking expertise, being mainly reliant on SQL injections, reused passwords and material provided by outsiders to embarrass high-profile targets such as Sony, America’s Public Broadcasting Service and the CIA.

Whether that’s true or not, the group furnished considerable material that is still being worked through — particularly an impressive drop of documents from Arizona police that provides a disturbing insight into anti-illegal immigration activities undertaken by law enforcement officials and by private groups in that state.

But the “end” of Lulzsec is misleading, because its activities will continue. Some of its members will re-emerge in other cyber security-focused groups, or within Anonymous, from which some of Lulzsec’s members are said to have come. But they’ll also continue for the very reason complained about by Lulzsec’s hacker critics — they’ve demonstrated just how simple it is for even inexperienced hackers to crack the sites of some of the world’s biggest companies and even law enforcement agencies, using relatively simple techniques.

Lulzsec’s cyber-spree always said far more about the poor security of governments and major corporations than it did about the motley band of hackers behind it.