Meet the Internet's new public enemy #1

Fame in the hacking community is a rare and fleeting thing. Kevin Mitnick found it – and served time for it. And more recently, the decentralized group "Anonymous" has been the reigning top dog.

But in the last month, a new contender for the throne has made a big push – and a lot of entertainment companies have been casualties of this war.

The group calls itself LulzSec. Best known, perhaps, for its Memorial Day weekend takeover of the PBS Websites (where it posted false news stories that rapper Tupac Shakur was still alive and living in New Zealand), the group has been craving the spotlight ever since. And it has learned that the quickest way to attract the media's attention (the ultimate sign of fame in the hacker world) is to target media and entertainment outlets.

The group hacked into Sony Pictures in early June, stealing – and posting online – administrative details and personal information for hundreds of people who had entered an online contest via the site.

Yesterday, it announced it had hacked into the servers of Bethesda Softworks, posting another file of information, but opting against posting user information for players of the action/shooter game "Brink".

Today, in what it's calling "Titanic Takedown Tuesday," the group has incapacitated the login sites of the "EVE Online" and "Minecraft" games – as well as the gaming news and opinion site The Escapist.

LulzSec seems to have no political agenda, preferring to picture itself as a band of mischievous troublemakers, but media sites are bracing themselves for attacks and wondering who's next.

Given the group's history, we probably won't have to wait much longer to find out.