Comprehensive test ban treaty international monitoring system security threats and proposed security attributes

Abstract

To monitor compliance with a Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), a sensing network, referred to as the International Monitoring System (IMS), is being deployed. Success of the IMS depends on both its ability to preform its function and the international community`s confidence in the system. To ensure these goals, steps must be taken to secure the system against attacks that would undermine it; however, it is not clear that consensus exists with respect to the security requirements that should be levied on the IMS design. In addition, CTBT has not clearly articulated what threats it wishes to address. This paper proposes four system-level threats that should drive IMS design considerations, identifies potential threat agents, and collects into one place the security requirements that have been suggested by various elements of the IMS community. For each such requirement, issues associated with the requirement are identified and rationale for the requirement is discussed.