Speaker
Description
Since Germany is a transit country in the middle of Europe there are a lot of transports of radioactive material and of nuclear material in and through Germany. Every year there are more than half a million transports of radioactive material in Germany. Mostly radioactive sources for medical use or measurement tools. In addition to that there is a smaller amount of transports of nuclear material. For example in 2024 there were about 340 transports of nuclear material, only 14 of them didn’t cross the borders of Germany.
As computer security is getting more and more relevant for nuclear installations, Germany is currently working on specific regulations regarding computer security for transports of nuclear material. For the transport of radioactive material regulations for computer security are addressed in the “Guideline for the Physical Protection of Other Radioactive Material during Handling and Transport against Malicious Acts” (malicious acts guideline other radioactive material).
The malicious acts guideline other radioactive material came into force in Germany 2022. It contains specific general objectives of computer security and addresses the computer security organization, the computer security concept and requirements for protection measures. Basis to this IT-requirements is the German BSI-Grundschutz, which defines basic standards how to protect computer-based systems. The BSI-Grundschutz meets the international standards ISO/IEC 27001.
To help carriers or other companies related to the organization of transports of radioactive material (e. g. licensees) in Germany implementing computer security to their computer-based systems the Federal Office for the Safety of Nuclear Waste Management (BASE) as the licensing authority together with a TSO wrote a document, which shows how to identify computer systems, which are used during transports and are relevant to security. It gives advise how to protect this computer-based systems and how to write a documentation, which is proofable during a licensing process.
This presentation will give an overview of the process to implement computer security measures for the transport of radioactive material. It will show the practical realization in the licensing process and concludes with a short outlook on future challenges in this field in Germany.
