Consideration Of Cybersecurity Risks With The Use Of Emerging Technologies

This paper discusses cybersecurity risks associated with the use of emerging technologies in nuclear power plants, the new types of threat vectors that could be introduced by these technologies, and the importance of continuously monitoring the presence of these devices to perform risk assessments and implement risk mitigating strategies prior to deployment. Advanced and innovative sensors and portable devices could interconnect with internet of things (IoT) and industrial IoT (IIoT) devices to improve nuclear power plant operation, maintenance, decommissioning and data storage. Emerging technologies can enable plant operators to collect big data to gain a better understanding of system and equipment performance by remote monitoring and data collection. The use of artificial intelligence technology to analyze real-time data could inform the decision-making process related to preventive maintenance and plant operations (e.g. manual and automatic response). With the introduction of emerging digital technologies in nuclear power plants, risk assessments should be performed to determining if risk mitigating strategies need to be implemented to protect the security of the device and plant information throughout the lifecycle of the device. By understanding the possible cybersecurity risks introduced by the emerging technologies in a nuclear power plant and the challenges with mitigating the risks, the cybersecurity program can be updated to implement risk mitigation strategies prior to deployment.