Security assessment of FPGA-based safety-critical systems: US NRC requirements context

The paper discusses importance of assessment of interference degree for various attributes of safety-critical systems, including safety and security, proposes applicable metrics, as well as represents an approach to assessment of safety-critical systems. Such approach relies on performance of gap analysis and consideration of influence of human, technique and tool. The approach is applicable to various safety-critical systems, including FPGA-based instrumentation and control (I&C) systems. Requirements of US Nuclear Regulatory Commission to security assessment and assurance for safety critical NNP I&C systems are analyzed. Profiling of the requirements considering features of FPGA-based I&Cs is described. As a case-study some results of security assessing for FPGA platform using Intrusion Modes and Effect Criticality Analysis (IMECA) are illustrated.