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Approach and Model Used to Represent a Timeline Analysis for Security Design Enhancements

Next-generation reactors will be able to use risk to inform and performance base the licensing of many aspects of the reactor, facility, and site design, including attributes of physical security. There are several factors related to security, including site topography, reactor design, and physical protection system components, to consider when designing the physical protection system into the overall facility design and plan of operation. With the versatility of advanced reactors, especially micro reactors, methods are needed to simplify and quickly evaluate potential timelines for designing a site configuration. This report describes an approach to generate qualitative and quantitative insights using a risk-informed simulation. The modeling process is described in detail, focusing on three aspects: (1) the facility mission time (the time required to control the plant until safe), (2) the attacker timeline (the time to potential sabotage), and (3) the response timeline (the time to counter the facility attack). The modeling capabilities also are extended to include facility physical phenomena such as thermal-hydraulics and heat transfer to capture realistic representation of dynamic changes to a facility. While the plant models and examples are hypothetical and do not represent a real facility, these modeling approaches could be used for future security-by-design engineering in advanced reactors. The outputs and insights from the modeling approach may be used to modify and optimize the security posture of a facility by efficiently making modifications to the model and seeing the overall impact from the modification. Lastly, use of the approach described in this report can also provide the technical basis for a physical protection program, describing how the facility and security strategy will cope with off-normal events.

22 GENERAL STUDIES OF NUCLEAR REACTORS↗

Facility Cybersecurity Framework Best Practices

Federal facilities are increasingly adopting automation and connecting to the Internet creating an energy-internet-of-things environment that converges operational technology (OT) and information technology (IT). Today's buildings increasingly weave together networked sensors and cyber and physical systems that enable data to be collected, aggregated, exchanged, stored and monetized in new ways. Building technological advances have created new energy technology, services, markets and value creation opportunities (e.g. transactive energy, two-way grid communications, machine learning, and increased use of renewable and distributed energy resources). But as larger data sets are being exchanged at faster speeds between an increasing number of OT systems, it becomes more difficult to protect the security of the data lifecycle and the physical equipment it interacts with. These challenges are especially difficult to overcome because the economic and environmental gain (interoperability, big data, social networks and ubiquitous information sharing) are driving these prominent trends in the digital age. Often cybersecurity is an afterthought. The U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Federal Energy Management Program (FEMP) funded the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) to develop various cybersecurity tools, trainings, and reports to aid federal facility managers – and other building owners and operators – in better applying frameworks and lessons learned from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) Cybersecurity Framework (CSF), risk management framework (RMF), DOE’s cybersecurity capability maturity model (C2M2), and a wide variety of industry best practices and guidance documents (i.e., NIST 800 series, Department of Defense United Facilities Criteria). This set of tools, collectively known as the FEMP Facility-Related Control System Cyber Toolkit (FRCS Cyber Toolkit)2, is focused on cybersecurity concerns from facility-related control systems and other operational technology (OT), such as industrial control systems (ICS). The FRCS Cyber Toolkit can be applied across six of the sixteen critical infrastructure sectors designated by the Department of Homeland Security, including government facilities, healthcare and public health, commercial facilities (e.g., public assembly, offices, lodging), financial services (e.g., banking and insurance), emergency services (e.g., fire and police stations), and information technology. With increasingly converged IT and OT systems, it is crucial to address OT cybersecurity considerations and assess how the seam of these two systems could impact the overall cybersecurity posture of a facility. The objective of this report is to provide an overview of the best possible method to use FRCS Cyber Toolkit (section 2.0) and distilled cybersecurity best practices for the federal facilities to address growing non-linear cyber threats (section 3.0). Recommendations in this document are aggregated from several NIST and other documents (see Appendix A for additional details).

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

From Stewardship to Transformation: Toward a Nuclear Enterprise for the 21st Century

The erosion of the global security environment over the last two decades has been rapid and dramatic. It appears also to be accelerating. There are deep and widening concerns in the United States and among its allies and partners that deterrence too has eroded at both the conventional and nuclear levels. The Strategic Posture Commission captured the essence of the problem in its October 2023 report—the United States seeks to meet the challenges of complex multipolar nuclear rivalry in the 21 st century with a slimmed down version of a nuclear deterrent designed in the middle of the 20 th century. With great urgency, the Commission recommended that something more and/or different is needed than simply the replacement of legacy systems with modern variants. But the U.S. nuclear security enterprise was reshaped after the Cold War to support the stockpile stewardship mission—not renewed designed, engineering, and production at scale. It has long fallen short of the agility, flexibility, and adaptiveness periodically asked of it by national leaders. In recent years, however, the message of urgency has been clearly received in the enterprise. Its culture has begun to shift. It has also been received by those in Washington D.C. responsible for funding and guiding the enterprise. The result is an enterprise in transition. Stockpile stewardship has given way to stockpile transformation. Risk aversion is giving way to risk management. Innovation and adaptation have been embraced. Experience to date has yielded some important lessons about what works and what doesn’t in terms of accelerating and delivering the needed innovation and adaptation. It has revealed the enduring character of some challenges. But it has also revealed that a much more agile and effective enterprise is within the national reach—something that will pay important dividends for deterrence, assurance, strategic stability, and peace.

45 MILITARY TECHNOLOGY, WEAPONRY, AND NATIONAL DEF↗