• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• 제56권3호
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• pp.1108-1115
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• 2024

Assuring physical security for Micro Modular Reactors (MMRs) will be key to their licensing. Economic constraints however require changes in how the security objectives are achieved for MMRs. A promising new approach is the so-called performance based (PB) approach wherein the regulator formally sets general security objectives and leaves it to the licensee to set their own specific acceptance criteria to meet those objectives. To implement the PB approach for MMRs, one performs a consequence-based analysis (CBA) whose objective is to study hypothetical malicious attacks on the facility, assuming that intruders take control of the facility and perform any technically possible action within a limited time before an offsite security force can respond. The scenario leading to the most severe radiological consequences is selected and studied to estimate the limiting impact on public health. The CBA estimates the total amount of radionuclides that would be released to the atmosphere in this hypothetical scenario to determine the total radiation dose to which the public would be exposed. The predicted radiation exposure dose is then compared to the regulatory dose limit for the site. This paper describes application of the CBA to four different MMRs technologies.

• 한국안전학회지
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• 제31권1호
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• pp.139-147
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• 2016

Nuclear energy is considerably cheap and clean compared to other fossil fuels. Yet, there are rising safety concerns of nuclear power plants including the possibility of radiation releasing nuclear accidents. In light of the Fukushima nuclear crisis in 2011, Japan has been re-evaluating their existing energy policies and increasing the share of alternative energy. This paper first tracks the major historical changes of energy policy in Japan by time period. Next, energy security, reignited concerns and alternative energy are covered to examine Japan's energy security situation and its transition after the Fukushima disaster. Lastly, a short survey based on thematic analysis was conducted in South Korea and Japan to understand the public awareness of nuclear. This paper postulates that the case of Fukushima will contribute to establish and operate a safe-future nuclear program in South Korea, given that the country is not only geographically neighbouring Japan but also the world's fourth largest producer of nuclear energy.

• 안보군사학연구
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• 통권5호
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• pp.173-202
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• 2007

After successful nuclear tests Pakistan launched a more severe surprise attack toward India than before. It is highly possible that North Korea will adopt this Pakistan military strategy if it is armed with nuclear weapons. The North Korean forces armed, with nuclear bombs could make double its war capability through strengthening aggressive force structure and come into effect on blocking reinforcement of the US forces at the initial phase of war time. Therefore we may regard that Pyongyang's nuclear arming is a major one of various factors which increase possibility of waging a conventional warfare or a nuclear war. North Korea's high self-confidence after nuclear arming will heighten tension on the Korean Peninsula via aggressive military threat or terror toward South Korea, and endeavor to accomplish its political purpose via low-intensity conflicts. For instance, nuclear arming of the Pyongyang regime enforces the North Korean forces to invade the Northern Limit Line(NLL), provoke naval battles at the West Sea, and occupy one or two among the Five Islands at the West Sea. In that case, the South Korean forces will be faced with a serious dilemma. In order to recapture the islands, Seoul should be ready for escalating a war. However it is hard to imagine that South Korea fights with North Korea armed with nuclear weapons. This paper concludes that the Pyongyang regime after nuclear arming strongly tends to occupy superiority of military strategy and wage military provocations on the Korean Peninsula.

• 시스템엔지니어링학술지
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• 제14권2호
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• pp.73-82
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• 2018

In this work, a hardware based cryptographic module for the cyber security of nuclear power plant is developed using a system engineering approach. Nuclear power plants are isolated from the Internet, but as shown in the case of Iran, Man-in-the-middle attacks (MITM) could be a threat to the safety of the nuclear facilities. This FPGA-based module does not have an operating system and it provides protection as a firewall and mitigates the cyber threats. The encryption equipment consists of an encryption module, a decryption module, and interfaces for communication between modules and systems. The Advanced Encryption Standard (AES)-128, which is formally approved as top level by U.S. National Security Agency for cryptographic algorithms, is adopted. The development of the cyber security module is implemented in two main phases: reverse engineering and re-engineering. In the reverse engineering phase, the cyber security plan and system requirements are analyzed, and the AES algorithm is decomposed into functional units. In the re-engineering phase, we model the logical architecture using Vitech CORE9 software and simulate it with the Enhanced Functional Flow Block Diagram (EFFBD), which confirms the performance improvements of the hardware-based cryptographic module as compared to software based cryptography. Following this, the Hardware description language (HDL) code is developed and tested to verify the integrity of the code. Then, the developed code is implemented on the FPGA and connected to the personal computer through Recommended Standard (RS)-232 communication to perform validation of the developed component. For the future work, the developed FPGA based encryption equipment will be verified and validated in its expected operating environment by connecting it to the Advanced power reactor (APR)-1400 simulator.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• 제52권5호
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• pp.995-1001
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• 2020

With the development of digital instrumentation and control (I&C) devices, cyber security at nuclear power plants (NPPs) has become a hot issue. The Stuxnet, which destroyed Iran's uranium enrichment facility in 2010, suggests that NPPs could even lead to an accident involving the release of radioactive materials cyber-attacks. However, cyber security research on industrial control systems (ICSs) and supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) systems is relatively inadequate compared to information technology (IT) and further it is difficult to study cyber-attack taxonomy for NPPs considering the characteristics of ICSs. The advanced research of cyber-attack taxonomy does not reflect the architectural and inherent characteristics of NPPs and lacks a systematic countermeasure strategy. Therefore, it is necessary to more systematically check the consistency of operators and regulators related to cyber security, as in regulatory guide 5.71 (RG.5.71) and regulatory standard 015 (RS.015). For this reason, this paper attempts to suggest a template for cyber-attack taxonomy based on the characteristics of NPPs and exemplifies a specific cyber-attack case in the template. In addition, this paper proposes a systematic countermeasure strategy by matching the countermeasure with critical digital assets (CDAs). The cyber-attack cases investigated using the proposed cyber-attack taxonomy can be used as data for evaluation and validation of cyber security conformance for digital devices to be applied, and as effective prevention and mitigation for cyber-attacks of NPPs.

• 정보보호학회논문지
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• 제29권5호
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• pp.1077-1088
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• 2019

원자력 발전소의 사이버위협이 현실화되면서 국제사회 및 국내에서는 사이버보안 규제지침 마련을 통해 필수디지털자산에 대한 적절한 보안조치를 적용하도록 요구하고 있다. 그러나 각 필수디지털자산에 대해 일괄적으로 동일한 사이버 보안조치 적용에 대해 규제 대상 내에서도 원전의 비상정지를 일으키고, 노심 손상을 유발할 수 있는 사고와 직접적으로 관련된 디지털자산에 단계적 접근방식을 적용한 규제 효과성 제고가 필요하다. 이에 본 연구에서는 원전 사고와 직접 관련된 디지털자산에 대하여 단계적 접근방식의 규제요건 개발을 위한 보안조치 적용 방안을 제시하였다. 단계적 접근방식의 기본적 고려사항인 규제 대상 설비의 침해영향도(Consequence)를 기반으로 한 규제 요건 적용을 위해 기존의 필수디지털자산에 요구되고 있는 보안조치를 보다 강화하거나 추가적인 보안조치를 개발하여 원전 사고와 직접 관련된 디지털자산에 요구하는 방식과 기존의 보안조치를 재분석하여 원전 사고와 직접 관련되지 않는 필수디지털자산에 대해서는 최소한의 보안조치를 요구하는 방식으로 크게 나누고 각 방안 별 세부적 사항을 기술하였다.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• 제53권10호
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• pp.3327-3334
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• 2021

Present electric grids are advanced to integrate smart grids, distributed resources, high-speed sensing and control, and other advanced metering technologies. Cybersecurity is one of the challenges of the smart grid and nuclear plant digital system. It affects the advanced metering infrastructure (AMI), for grid data communication and controls the information in real-time. The research article is emphasized solving the nuclear and smart grid hardware security issues with the integration of field programmable gate array (FPGA), and implementing the latest Time Authenticated Cryptographic Identity Transmission (TACIT) cryptographic algorithm in the chip. The cryptographic-based encryption and decryption approach can be used for a smart grid distribution system embedding with FPGA hardware. The chip design is carried in Xilinx ISE 14.7 and synthesized on Virtex-5 FPGA hardware. The state of the art of work is that the algorithm is implemented on FPGA hardware that provides the scalable design with different key sizes, and its integration enhances the grid hardware security and switching. It has been reported by similar state-of-the-art approaches, that the algorithm was limited in software, not implemented in a hardware chip. The main finding of the research work is that the design predicts the utilization of hardware parameters such as slices, LUTs, flip-flops, memory, input/output blocks, and timing information for Virtex-5 FPGA synthesis before the chip fabrication. The information is extracted for 8-bit to 128-bit key and grid data with initial parameters. TACIT security chip supports 400 MHz frequency for 128-bit key. The research work is an effort to provide the solution for the industries working towards embedded hardware security for the smart grid, power plants, and nuclear applications.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• 제50권5호
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• pp.780-787
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• 2018

This article presents a security module based on a field programmable gate array (FPGA) to mitigate man-in-the-middle cyber attacks. Nowadays, the FPGA is considered to be the state of the art in nuclear power plants I&C systems due to its flexibility, reconfigurability, and maintainability of the FPGA technology; it also provides acceptable solutions for embedded computing applications that require cybersecurity. The proposed FPGA-based security module is developed to mitigate information-gathering attacks, which can be made by gaining physical access to the network, e.g., a man-in-the-middle attack, using a cryptographic process to ensure data confidentiality and integrity and prevent injecting malware or malicious data into the critical digital assets of a nuclear power plant data communication system. A model-based system engineering approach is applied. System requirements analysis and enhanced function flow block diagrams are created and simulated using CORE9 to compare the performance of the current and developed systems. Hardware description language code for encryption and serial communication is developed using Vivado Design Suite 2017.2 as a programming tool to run the system synthesis and implementation for performance simulation and design verification. Simple windows are developed using Java for physical testing and communication between a personal computer and the FPGA.

• 시큐리티연구
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• 제60호
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• pp.227-251
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• 2019

원자력 안전에 대한 국민적 관심이 지속적으로 증가하고 있는 가운데 그동안 비정규직으로 위탁운영되던 원자력발전소 특수경비원의 정규직화가 추진 중에 있다. 특수경비원은 시설경비하기, 무기 사용하기, 비상사태 대응하기, 출입통제하기 등 상당한 수준의 체력이 요구되는 직무를 수행하는 바, 특수경비원의 정규직화 과정에 있어 이들의 체력검정방안에 대한 논의가 시급한 실정이다. 본 연구에서는 문헌연구를 통해 한국, 미국, 일본 3개국의 경찰, 소방, 군인을 대상으로 한 체력검정방법을 분석하였으며, 이를 통해 기존 특수직종별 체력검정방법의 특징과 장·단점을 고찰하고자 하였다. 이후 전문가 회의를 거쳐 원자력발전소 특수경비원에게 적합한 새로운 체력검정방법을 도출하였다. 또한 본 연구는 개발된 체력검정방법이 현장에 도입될 수 있도록 체력검정결과를 해석할 수 있는 가이드라인을 제시하고자 하였다. 이를 위해 74명의 피검자를 대상으로 체력검정을 실시하였으며, 실험결과를 기초로 특수경비원 체력검정종목별 예상기록을 제시하였다.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• 제51권5호
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• pp.1355-1364
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• 2019

A recently published nuclear forensics methodology for source discrimination of separated weapons-grade plutonium utilizes intra-element isotope ratios and a maximum likelihood formulation to identify the most likely source reactor-type, fuel burnup and time since irradiation of unknown material. Sensitivity studies performed here on the effects of random measurement error and the uncertainty in intra-element isotope ratio values show that different intra-element isotope ratios have disproportionate contributions to the determination of the reactor parameters. The methodology is robust to individual errors in measured intra-element isotope ratio values and even more so for uniform systematic errors due to competing effects on the predictions from the selected intra-element isotope ratios suite. For a unique sample-model pair, simulation uncertainties of up to 28% are acceptable without impeding successful source-reactor discrimination. However, for a generic sample with multiple plausible sources within the reactor library, uncertainties of 7% or less may be required. The results confirm the critical role of accurate reactor core physics, fuel burnup simulations and experimental measurements in the proposed methodology where increased simulation uncertainty is found to significantly affect the capability to discriminate between the reactors in the library.