Innovatives Gemisch: Alleskönner offenbaren unbekannte ... - Tuv

12 Trends contact 2.06
ment agencies – especially when
we have big orders waiting to be
processed,” explained Matthias
Hunecke, Executive Director of the
railway repair depot in Brühl. “The
TÜV Rheinland temps are always
well qualified and they can step in
straight away to make up for staff
shortages,” said Hunecke, describing
the advantages of temporary
employees for his company. He
currently has 125 full-time employees
for welding and mechanical
work and, depending on the order
situation, approximately 20 temporary
workers like Stefan Mondorf
and his colleague Thomas Kurth,
who has been employed with TÜV
Rheinland since October 2005. “I
like the variety,” said the 24 yearold.
“I can learn lots of different
skills and I always meet interesting
people.” Kurth has worked the
night shift at Ford, assembled medical
products at Accell and now he’s
repairing railway cars. Flexibility is
the magic word that has boosted
the popularity of temporary employment
in the German labor
market. Around one-third of German
temporary employees end up
working full-time for the companies
where they are placed. That’s
what happened to Stefan Mondorf.
The railway depot bosses were so
pleased with the TÜV Rheinland
Group temp that they decided to
keep him on. Today is his first
workday as a permanent member
of staff. At 12 noon on the dot he
takes off his welding guard and
says, “I’m really looking forward to
my lunch break with my new/old
colleagues.”
Team work: Thomas Kurth, Andreas Goldau und Stefan Mondorf
(from left).
400 000
300 000
200 000
100 000
Number of temporary workers in Germany
288 000
267 000
276 000
323 000
343 000
2001 2002 2003 2004 2005
contact 2.06 Trends 13
Mobile Secret Code
Fast, convenient – and secure: Online banking customers of
the Postbank now receive their transaction numbers via SMS.
TÜV Rheinland Group tested this smart service
Rolf vom Stein’s cell phone
beeps. A short message. The send er
is not a friend or a colleague, but
rather the Postbank. In the SMS,
vom Stein finds the TAN, or transaction
number, which en ables his
online transfer. It applies only to
this one transaction and ex pires
after a short time. “Due to its
limited ‘service life’, an attacker
would find it extremely difficult
to misuse the mTAN”, explains
vom Stein, an IT specialist at TÜV
Rheinland Group.
His team went through the security
of the mobile TAN, called mTAN,
with a fine-tooth comb and determined
that the procedure cannot
be manipulated from the outside,
also because the inquiry and reply
are transported over different
routes. These are presumably not
tapped by an attacker at the same
time. In addition, the mTAN sends
the recipient account and amount,
so that the customer can always
check whether his data are falsified
or not.
Elegant and convenient
The Postbank was the first bank in
Germany to send the TAN to cell
phones for its online banking customers
who request it. “Customers
who use mTANs in addition to the
traditional TANs can easily access
their secret numbers from anywhere”,
explains vom Stein.
To activate the mTAN, the customer
registers his cell number on the
Postbank online banking page and
confirms it via telephone, fax or
letter. Only when the customer
approves a transfer or other transaction
using online banking is the
TAN generated and sent to the
customer via SMS at the cost price
of nine cents. “Using SMS offers a
number of advantages and is more
secure than the old TAN process”,
determined TÜV Rheinland Group
after a thorough security check of
the IT infrastructure behind the
mobile secret code.
Information
Rolf vom Stein
rolf.vom.stein@de.tuv.com
Phone +49 221 806-2863
www.postbank.de/mTAN
000000732 8
Stylish: The Post Tower
in Bonn, headquarters of
the Postbank.