Innovations in Advanced Cybersecurity Technologies for Safety Systems Within NPPs

This panel will summarize an ongoing body of DOE' supported research and development efforts to provide the Nuclear Power industry with implementation and approaches to leverage advanced cybersecurity technologies for safety systems within nuclear power plants (NPPs). Digital technologies play a critical role in ensuring the reliable operation of safety systems in NPPs. Current cybersecurity regulations for operating NPPs, typically result a high reliance on hardened and secure boundaries to prevent adversary access to safety systems. The summarized research efforts detail approaches for leveraging commercial advanced cybersecurity technologies to provide sufficient inherent cybersecurity to reduce reliance on these hardened and secured boundaries. These research efforts consist of experiments that demonstrate novel approaches aimed at reducing functional (e.g., latency, reliability) and licensing impacts to safety systems through application of secure elements and other cybersecurity technologies (e.g, network monitoring, AI, ML) common in other industries. These efforts aim to support all reactor types, including domestic light water reactors, advanced reactors, small modular reactors, and microreactors. Specifically, innovation in the use of advanced cybersecurity technologies to enable several desired advances in safety systems (e.g., remote communications, monitoring, active defense), significant to advanced and small modular reactors. These reactor types will require advanced cybersecurity technologies to provide robust cryptographic mechanisms, intrusion detection and response, to defend the confidentiality and integrity necessary for remote multi-unit monitoring, reduction in sustaining costs, and enable scale-up of operations to meet domestic and international green energy and production goals, for the next generation of safety systems.