Spiegel Online – Netzwelt, January 30, 2001 (translated from German)
Challenge:
"Who relieves us of DM 10,000 may keep them"
Frank Patalong
"On Sunday, January 28", he says in his press release, "the 'ARD-Ratgeber' report presented the most frightening horror scenarios to be the norm – in spite of protests from people who really know their business." It was incredible nonsense, says Holzer. Not enough that they claimed that single-use TANs could be intercepted and used for shopping or for withdrawing money – allegedly also biometric security measures could be cracked. This would mean that every hobby computer user could produce a virtual iris using digital photography in order to outwit an eye scan. Holzer: "Of course, a lot is possible, and everything is relative. You could be struck by lightning or die in your sleep, but it is nonsense to warn against sleeping." After all, risks or no – how big can the risks be if they haven't been noticed by 10 millions of online banking customers nationwide until now? Of course there is abuse of credit cards, but how many of them have been cracked via internet and not by dishonest waiters that were handed over the cards in good faith? Holzer: "This annoyed me so much that I said that the evidence to the contrary is worth a tidy sum." The decision was made spontaneously: In the early afternoon he turned to the press, announcing his "competition" that is a challenge to Germany's hacker community. "We pay DM 10,000 for stealing a TAN" Holzer and his PR manager Ramona Wonneberger wrote: "The first person who breaks into our company's online banking system, steals the necessary information and a TAN and uses them to withdraw DM 10,000 from one of our business accounts can keep the 10,000 marks." After all, this is not so easy, says Holzer. He is bound to know, because his company is dealing with the development of security technologies. Whether or not he underestimates Germany's hackers, he is going to know in a few days. "I'll keep you posted." Until then he wants to make sure that the whole affair is happening on a high level. "Tomorrow we are going to create a special site for the hackers where they can register if they want to." Just to make sure that everything is running smoothly on both sides: "If we would simply switch off the computers we would be safe as well." But this is not what he wants. Instead he wants to provide the hackers that are taking part with tips – or does he want to make sure that only the first one keeps the 10,000 deutschmarks? Holzer is optimistic and trusts the security of his online banking solution. He is going to risk it: "Even the 'ARD-Ratgeber' will not be able to stop the progress." And if the worst comes to the worst? Even then he has succeeded once again: Nutzwerk is known for its clever PR campaigns. By throwing down the gauntlet to Germany's hackers, Holzer and his company are getting a bit more famous again. Even if he loses the 10,000 marks it has been a real bargain. But this is not what he wants, he says, and the annoyance about all these "outdated warnings that are repeated again and again" is noticeable: "I want to show that the fear of e-commerce and online banking is much exaggerated." We will wait and see.
It has always been a thorn in the flesh of Rene Holzer, CEO of the Nutzwerk company from Halle which is specialized on internet technologies, that the media are warning repeatedly against the security risks of internet banking. But the last straw was the TV program 'ARD-Ratgeber'.
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