Mexico: Hacker Group Alters Mexican Government Web Sites.  A Mexican
hacker group known as "X-Ploit" has threatened to publicize official
bank accounts, cellular phone conversations, and e-mails.  The group
claims it will "be in every ministry, in every government cell phone,
bank account, electronic transaction and e-mail", in order to publicize,
"what really goes on in Mexico behind our backs." X-Ploit has claimed no
affiliation with the Zapatista National Liberation Army. 

-------------------------------------------------------
From x_ploit@hotmail.com Wed Sep 16 07:52:11 1998
Return-Path: 
Received: from 209.75.196.2 by www.hotmail.com with HTTP;
        Wed, 16 Sep 1998 07:01:31 PDT
X-Originating-IP: [209.75.196.2]
From: "X Ploit" 
Subject: MEXICAN GOVT. WEBSITE HACKED
Date: Wed, 16 Sep 1998 07:01:31 PDT

MEXICAN GOVT. WEBSITE HACKED


4.Febrero.98 Secretaria de Hacienda y Credito Publico 
23.Abril.98 Comision Nacional del Agua 
29.Abril.98 Instituto Nacional de Estadistica Geografia e Informatica 
25.Mayo.98 Senado de la Republica 
14.Julio.98 Secretaria de Salud 
16.Septiembre.98 San Pedro.gob.mx

Recordamos a los hiroes que nos dieron patria, que nos dieron libertad,
que nos dieron independencia.

Hoy proclamamos la independencia del gobierno corrupto y traidor.
Hoy declaramos InterNet territorio libre del yugo gubernamental, del
hermano mayor, y convocamos a todos los hermanos hackers de nuestro
pams a segumr con esta lucha, que iniciamos ahora, tomando como nuestro,
este territorio con fronteras virtuales, que sin embargo, se extiende a
nuestra patria misma. Basta de mentiras, violencia, corrupcisn; 
defendamos 
nuestra libertad, nuestras garantmas, nuestro derecho a levantar la mano 
y protestar de los funcionarios que han hecho de Mixico su circo, 
por nuestro pams, por un cambio. Iste es sslo el principio de la lucha.

VIVA MIXICO!!!!

[X-PLOIT TEAM] - 100% MEXICANO

-- Mexico para los mexicanos e Internet para X-Ploit !!

PD. Esta es la direccion.
http://www.sanpedro.gob.mx

Mexican hackers speak out 
     By Reuters
     Special to CNET News.com
     August 5, 1998, 11:15 a.m. PT 

MEXICO CITY--They have plastered the face of revolutionary hero Emiliano
Zapata on the Finance Ministry's Web site and claim to have monitored
visits by senators to X-rated Internet salons. 

They also have vowed to mine official data bases for incriminating
numbers and publicize government bank accounts, cellular phone
conversations, and email addresses. 

A small group of computer hackers has declared electronic war on the
Mexican state.  So far the cyberpirates appear to be more a nuisance
than a serious threat, but they are serving as a wake-up call for
computer security in Mexico, experts said. 

"We protest with the weapons we have and those weapons are computers,"
said one of the hackers, who calls himself as LoTek, in an online
interview with Reuters. 

The hackers, who say they are a trio of Mexicans, surfaced in February
when visitors to the Finance Ministry's official Web site were surprised
to find Zapata staring back at them. 

Initially the prank was thought to be the work of the Zapatista National
Liberation Army, named after the leader of Mexico's 1910 revolution,
which led an armed uprising in 1994 in the southern state of Chiapas. 
The Zapatistas run their own Web site and are known to be Net-savvy. 

But the hackers, calling themselves "X-Ploit," said they have no links
to the Zapatistas, they just share their disdain for the government of
President Ernesto Zedillo. 

"We're only looking to show that we don't agree [with the government],"
LoTek said.  "In other places these protests are not heard, but a hacked
Web site is read by millions."

The group, which also slapped its smiley-face logo on the Health
Ministry's Web site, said it was monitoring senators' online activities
and email.  "We've been able to capture some of the [Web] visiting
habits of some senators, including triple-X pages," LoTek said. 

While they have gained a certain online notoriety, federal attorney
general's office and Interior Ministry spokeswomen said they knew of no
official investigation into the group. 

The hackers appear more interested in propaganda than sabotage or
espionage, but they do represent a potential threat to government and
corporate computer systems, industry executives said. 

"The danger is if they can do that, of course they can hack and get into
very important data and erase it or put it to their own use," said Luis
Loranca, Mexico country manager for Network Associates, a Santa Clara,
California-based maker of antivirus and computer network security
products. 

But he said that with relatively few hackers in Mexico, the most common
threat comes from in-house. 

Few companies here have adopted internal computer network security
measures common in the United States to limit access to sensitive
databases and files, Loranca said.  This has made corporate espionage
relatively easy, although few companies have publicly acknowledged
security breaches. 

"Espionage is very, very large in Mexico," Loranca said. 

Javier Matuk, chief executive of Mexican online service provider Spin
Internet, said his firm had not been hacked in its eight years of
operation but it constantly monitors its network for intruders.  He said
he was not too concerned about "X-ploit" because they seemed most
interested in being a thorn in the side of the government. 

"If what they claim is true, then definitely the government has a
problem.  But just the government.  The rest of us don't have a
problem," Matuk said.  But he said he thought it was a bit "infantile"
to expect that sensitive government information could be gleaned by
monitoring senators' email. 

Nevertheless, the Mexican hackers said they had their "sniffers" in
place at several ministries.  "We'll let you know when we've trapped
something good," LoTek said.