Vulnerability Assessments of Measurement Systems

To provide confidence in a host country’s declarations, an accurate nuclear material measurement system is necessary. Some types of measurements may reveal classified or sensitive information either independently or when their data are combined with data from other measurements. A vulnerability analysis ideally identifies the modes by which these data might be released and indicates methods to mitigate unauthorized data release. While vulnerability analyses have been applied to many measurement systems, no standard process currently exists for documenting a measurement system vulnerability analysis. The disadvantages from this lack of a standard are compounded by the host country’s need to avoid documenting methods to foil the system. This paper introduces a paradigm for the development of future measurement system vulnerability analyses, with the expectation of paradigm application to a measurement system featuring an information barrier.