Uncovering cyber-threats to nuclear system sensing and observability

This paper presents a technique for analyzing observability attacks. How an attacker can design an attack to maximize the impact on the unobservable states while minimizing the possibility of detection is discussed. Criteria for maintaining a stealthy attack are given, and a design method is provided. For a nuclear balance of plant system, combinations of sensor omissions are analyzed to find an observability attack with maximum impact and minimum detection. An appropriate attack input signal is created, an attack is simulated, and the system response is shown.