Providing Security Assurance in Line with National DBT Assumptions

As worldwide energy requirements are increasing simultaneously with climate change and energy security considerations, States are thinking about building nuclear power to fulfill their electricity requirements and decrease their dependence on carbon fuels. New nuclear power plants (NPPs) must have comprehensive cybersecurity measures integrated into their design, structure, and processes. In the absence of effective cybersecurity measures, the impact of nuclear security incidents can be severe. Some of the current nuclear facilities were not specifically designed and constructed to deal with the new threats, including targeted cyberattacks. Thus, newcomer countries must consider the Design Basis Threat (DBT) as one of the security fundamentals during design of physical and cyber protection systems of nuclear facilities. IAEA NSS 10 describes the DBT as "comprehensive description of the motivation, intentions and capabilities of potential adversaries against which protection systems are designed and evaluated". Nowadays, many threat actors, including hacktivists, insider threat, cyber criminals, state and non-state groups (terrorists) pose security risks to nuclear facilities. Threat assumptions are made on a national level. Consequently, threat assessment closely affects the design structures of nuclear facilities. Some of the recent security incidents e.g. Stuxnet worm (Advanced Persistent Threat) and theft of sensitive information in South Korea Nuclear Power Plant (Insider Threat) have shown that these attacks should be considered as the top threat to nuclear facilities. Therefore, the cybersecurity context is essential for secure and safe use of nuclear power. In addition, States should include multiple DBT scenarios in order to protect various target materials, types of facilities, and adversary objectives. Development of a comprehensive DBT is a precondition for the establishment and further improvement of domestic state nuclear-related regulations in the field of physical and cyber protection. These national regulations have to be met later on by I&C platform suppliers, electrical systems suppliers, system integrators and turn-key providers.