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Computer Security for Commercial Nuclear Power Plants - Literature Review for Korea Hydro Nuclear Power Central Research Institute

Waymire, Russel L.; Duran, Felicia A.

Sandia National Laboratories (SNL) is providing training and consultation activities on security planning and design for the Korea Hydro and Nuclear Power Central Research Institute (KHNPCRI). As part of this effort, SNL performed a literature review on computer security requirements, guidance and best practices that are applicable to an advanced nuclear power plant. This report documents the review of reports generated by SNL and other organizations [U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Nuclear Energy Institute, and International Atomic Energy Agency] related to protection of information technology resources, primarily digital controls and computer resources and their data networks. Copies of the key documents have also been provided to KHNP-CRI.

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TYPE SAND Report YEAR 2013
DOIOSTI

Evaluation of the applicability of existing nuclear power plant regulatory requirements in the U.S. to advanced small modular reactors

Middleton, Bobby M.; Wheeler, Timothy A.; Farnum, Cathy O.; Duran, Felicia A.; Jordan, Sabina E.; Baum, Gregory A.

The current wave of small modular reactor (SMR) designs all have the goal of reducing the cost of management and operations. By optimizing the system, the goal is to make these power plants safer, cheaper to operate and maintain, and more secure. In particular, the reduction in plant staffing can result in significant cost savings. The introduction of advanced reactor designs and increased use of advanced automation technologies in existing nuclear power plants will likely change the roles, responsibilities, composition, and size of the crews required to control plant operations. Similarly, certain security staffing requirements for traditional operational nuclear power plants may not be appropriate or necessary for SMRs due to the simpler, safer and more automated design characteristics of SMRs. As a first step in a process to identify where regulatory requirements may be met with reduced staffing and therefore lower cost, this report identifies the regulatory requirements and associated guidance utilized in the licensing of existing reactors. The potential applicability of these regulations to advanced SMR designs is identified taking into account the unique features of these types of reactors.

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TYPE SAND Report YEAR 2013
DOIOSTI

Security risk management of small modular reactors

International Topical Meeting on Probabilistic Safety Assessment and Analysis 2013, PSA 2013

Cipiti, Benjamin B.; Wyss, Gregory D.; Duran, Felicia A.; Lewis, Tom G.

Physical security analyses for nuclear reactors have historically sought to ensure that there is an acceptably low probability of success for a "design basis" adversary to accomplish a theft or sabotage objective, even for the adversary's most advantageous path. While some have used probabilistic risk assessment to characterize these risks, the lack of a validated attack frequency, among other things, has made this difficult. Recent work at Sandia National Laboratories (SNL) characterizes a facility's security risk for a scenario in terms of level of difficulty an adversary would encounter in order to be reasonably sure of success (the Risk Informed Management of Enterprise Security (RIMES) methodology). Scenarios with lower levels of difficulty can then be addressed through design changes or improvements to the physical protection system. This work evaluates the level of difficulty of a number of attack scenarios for Small Modular Reactors (SMRs), and provides insight to help designers optimize the protection of their facilities. The methodology and general insights are described here.

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TYPE Conference YEAR 2013
OSTIScopus

Probabilistic basis and assessment methodology for effectiveness of protecting nuclear materials

Proceedings - International Carnahan Conference on Security Technology

Duran, Felicia A.

Safeguards and security systems for nuclear facilities include material control and accounting (MC&A) and a physical protection system (PPS) to protect against theft, sabotage and other malevolent human acts. The insider threat is most often addressed as part of the evaluation of a facility's PPS. A PPS is evaluated using probabilistic analysis of adversary paths on the basis of detection, delay, and response timelines to determine timely detection. Because insider adversaries have access to, knowledge of, and authority for facility operations, the PPS actually provides minimal protection against the insider threat. By monitoring and tracking critical materials, MC&A activities are an important protection element against inside adversaries. Timely detection for MC&A activities, however, has been difficult to determine so that for the most part, the effectiveness of these activities has not been explicitly incorporated in the insider threat evaluation of a PPS. This paper presents research on a new approach to incorporate MC&A protection elements explicitly within the existing probabilistic path analysis methodology. MC&A activities, from monitoring to inventory measurements, provide many, often recurring opportunities to determine the status of critical items, including detection of missing materials. Human reliability analysis methods for nuclear power plant operations are used to determine human error probabilities to characterize the detection capabilities of MC&A activities. An object-based state machine paradigm was developed to characterize the path elements and timing of an insider theft scenario as a race against MC&A detection that can move a facility from a normal state to an alert state having additional detection opportunities. Event sequence diagrams describe insider paths through the PPS and also incorporate MC&A activities as path elements. To address the insider threat, this work establishes a probabilistic basis for timely MC&A detection and methods to evaluate the effectiveness of MC&A activities explicitly within the existing path analysis methodology. © 2012 IEEE.

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TYPE Conference YEAR 2012
OSTIScopus
Results 1–25 of 70
Results 1–25 of 70