Berlin: (hib/STO) The response from the Federal Government (20/6266) on a small request from the AfD parliamentary group (20/5879). According to this, against the background of the first expiry of certificates in September 2022, gematik GmbH “developed the first solution approaches for extending the service life of connectors as early as 2018 and in discussions with all connector manufacturers, the Federal Office for Information Security (BSI) and the shareholders the feasibility is determined and the risk potential is evaluated”. In view of the fact that the first certificates were already expiring in September 2022, the shareholders of gematik GmbH decided on February 28, 2022 “to exchange the connectors in use when the device-specific security module card type K (gSMC-K) certificates expired as the only viable alternative”. Overall, the risks and costs associated with the extension of the gSMC-K term were so high, according to the shareholders, that the exchange represented the safest and most economical solution.
At the same time, other alternatives to replacing the connector were identified in dialogue with the manufacturers, as the federal government also explains. This enabled the shareholders’ meeting of gematik GmbH in its meeting on August 29, 2022 to show “valid alternatives (maturity extension of the TI device card gSMC-K, data center solutions)” for the future according to the template. “Then the shareholders decided on this basis to enable additional paths that will make it unnecessary to replace the connectors across the board in the future,” the answer continues.
As can also be seen from the template, 31,860 connectors from KoCo Connector GmbH (KocoBox Med+) of hardware version 2.0.0 have been replaced so far (as of March 30, 2023).