Four members of the noisy and prolific LulzSec group, an offshoot of Anonymous, were sentenced today in London to between two and two-and-a-half years in prison for their roles in a series of high-profile hacks against Sony and other targets in 2011.

Ryan Cleary, also known as "Viral" online, Jake "Topiary" Davis, and Ryan "Kayla" Ackroyd, all received sentences in prison, while Mustafa al-Bassam, aka T-Flow, was given a 20-month suspended sentence due to the fact that he was only 16 when he committed the crimes. Al-Bassam, now 18, was also sentenced to 300 hours of community service, according to the BBC.

The group, all now in their early twenties except Al-Bassam, went on a hacking spree, dubbed "50 Days of Lulz" in the spring of 2011, during which they stole passwords, credit card data and email addresses and also conducted denial-of-service attacks against websites. Targets included Sony Pictures – from whom they stole data on millions of customer accounts – Electronic Arts, Rupert Murdoch's News International corporation, as well as the Serious Organized Crime Agency, the UK's chief investigating division for cybercrimes, and the CIA web site.

The group also claimed responsibility for hacking Sony’s Japanese website, hacking PBS to protest Frontline’s hour-long documentary on WikiLeaks, and for hacking Fox.com, where the group stole and posted 363 employee passwords and the names, phone numbers and email addresses of 73,000 people who had signed up for audition information for the upcoming Fox talent show The X-Factor.

Cleary was not a primary member of the group, but he got the largest sentence, 32 months in prison. He was charged with supplying the hacking tools to conduct the attacks and for hacking U.S. Air Force computers. He also pleaded guilty to possession of indecent images of children and babies; his sentencing for this charge is scheduled for a separate hearing.

Ackroyd was described as the ringleader responsible for choosing targets and directing the others. He pleaded guilty to stealing data from Sony and also for interfering with the Sun newspaper site by redirecting users to a fabricated story indicating that Rupert Murdoch, CEO of the News Corporation, had committed suicide. He was sentenced to 30 months.

Davis, one of the most prominent members of the group due to his role as spokesman, was sentenced to two years, which he will serve in a youth detention center.

Contrary to the low-tech nature of their activities, Prosecutor Sandip Patel described the hackers as being on "the cutting edge of a contemporary and emerging species of criminal offender known as a cybercriminal."

Crown Prosecutor Andrew Hadik told the court, "The harm they caused was foreseeable, extensive and intended. Indeed, they boasted of how clever they were with a complete disregard for the impact their actions had on real people's lives."

Their arrests came after authorities arrested and flipped the former alleged ringleader of the group, Hector Monsegur, who used the name Sabu online.

Monsegur was arrested in June 2011 and became an informant, working with authorities to arrest his co-conspirators. Monsegur's own sentencing has been delayed while he cooperated with authorities.

The London hackers are not the only ones arrested for their role in LulzSec. Last month, another member named Cody Kretsinger, who went by the online nickname "recursion," was also sentenced to a year of home detention and 1,000 hours of community service. Australian authorities also recently arrested another alleged member of the group.