Swissbit and Telekom Security keep cash registers clean

• One of the most secure chip card operating systems will soon also protect cash registers
• Swissbit and Telekom Security combine their expertise against manipulation
• 100 percent "Made in Germany" - developed in Munich and produced in Berlin

They are small, inconspicuous but let the tax authorities sleep better: plug-in modules with USB, SD or microSD interfaces. What at first glance looks like an ordinary data card is actually full of security competence. Because when it comes to Swissbit and Telekom Security, tax fraud is one variant poorer. With these modules, cash register systems can be upgraded without any complex intervention in the hardware. They simply must be plugged in. From January 2020 in Germany, this will even be true literally.

From then on, the legal regulations of the tax authorities will apply. These apply to all new electronic and existing PC-based POS systems. They need a certified technical safety device (TSE). "We know how to offer legally compliant systems to meet the complex challenges facing manufacturers," says Hubertus Grobbel, head of Business Unit Security Products at Swissbit AG in Munich. "All POS systems already in use in the field in retail, trade and gastronomy must be retrofitted by the end of 2022 at the latest. PC systems even as early as January 2020. This is simply possible with the Swissbit TSEs".

On board the Swissbit TSE modules is one of the most secure operating systems on the IT market: the Telesec Chipcard Operating System - TCOS for short from Telekom Security. More than 100 million electronic passports, ID cards, digital tachographs and electronic health cards are equipped with TCOS in Europe. "With immediate effect, we are also expanding our expertise to the retail market in retail, trade and gastronomy," says Dirk Backofen, head of Telekom Security. "Together with Swissbit, we are giving cash registers a forgery-proof, digital identity. The popular trick is then no longer to tax less goods than have actually been sold. The cash register records can no longer be manipulated afterwards."

This is also the view of the Federal Office for Information Security (BSI). Swissbit TSE products are already being certified there. As a rule, small computers are located under the hood of cash registers. With the new tax regulations, the authorities are reacting to the underground trade with manipulated cash register software. It was not until 2018 that NRW Finance Minister Lutz Lienenkämper estimated the damage caused by manipulated devices in Germany at up to ten billion euros.