Systems Thinking Safety Analysis: Nuclear Security Assessment of Physical Protection System in Nuclear Power Plants

The dynamical assessment has been performed in the aspect of the nuclear power plants (NPPs) security. The physical protection system (PPS) is constructed by the cyber security evaluation tool (CSET) for the nuclear security assessment. The systems thinking algorithm is used for the quantifications by the Vensim software package. There is a period of 60 years which is the life time of NPPs' operation. The maximum possibility happens as 3.59 in the 30th year. The minimum value is done as 1.26 in the 55th year. The difference is about 2.85 times. The results of the case with time delay have shown that the maximum possibility of terror or sabotage incident happens as 447.42 in the 58th year and the minimum value happens as 89.77 in the 51st year. The difference is about 4.98 times. Hence, if the sabotage happens, the worst case is that the intruder can attack the target of the nuclear material in about one and a half hours. The general NPPs are modeled in the study and controlled by the systematic procedures. 1. Introduction The dynamical assessment is investigated for the security in the nuclear power plants (NPPs). The nonlinear dynamic algorithm is applied to the advanced security assessment, which is called the systems thinking analysis. The cyber security evaluation tool (CSET) gives operators a repeatable and systematic ways for assessing the cyber security state of the industrial control system networks which is shown in Figure 1, where it provides the tools of both high-level and detailed questions applicable to all industrial control systems (ICSs) [1]. The CSET was developed under the direction of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Control Systems Security Program (CSSP). It is shown that CSET is a designed desktop software that makes users assess their network and ICS security practices regarding identified industrial and governmental regulations [1]. This completed CSET assessment means a suggested list that enhances the security state for ICS of organization or network of company and also recognizes the achievement of the designed security level in the standards [1]. Figure 1: Configuration for the path of cyber security evaluation tool (CEST). Information about the security in NPPs is available in the literature. Safeguard modeling is conducted for the successful operations in the NPPs [2]. Also, Pei et al. compared their method with some existing methods for nuclear safeguard evaluations in an example, which supports and clarifies the method of their paper [3]. The characteristics of the secure operation in NPPs are investigated using