Cyber security in nuclear industry – Analytic study from the terror incident in nuclear power plants (NPPs)

Highlights: • The cyber terrorism in NPPs of South Korea shows the study motivations. • Analyses of the cyber terrorism in NPPs are investigated. • Designed solutions for the cyber terrorism in NPPs are discussed. • South Korean case is considered as the cyber terrorism in NPPs. - Abstract: The cyber terrorism for nuclear power plants (NPPs) is investigated for the analytic study following the South Korean case on December 2014. There are several possible cyber terror attacks in which the twelve cases are studied for the nuclear terror cases including the computer hacking and data stealing. The defense-in-depth concept is compared for cyber terrorism, which was imported from the physical terror analysis. The conventional three conditions of the physical protection system (PPS) are modified as prevention, detection, and response. The six cases are introduced for the solutions of the facility against the possible cyber terrorism in NPPs. The computer hacking methods and related solutions are analyzed for the applications in the nuclear industry. The nuclear security in the NPPs could be an extremely serious condition and the remedies are very important in the safe plant operations. In addition, the quantitative modeling study is performed.