← SCP Cost Explorer Read on SCP Wiki ↗
SCP-2519 Safe ~ medium confidence
SCP-2519
Expected annual
$5.2M
One-time setup
$1.6M
Annual recurring
$5.1M
Personnel
17
One-time setup costs are moderate (~$1.58M) driven by Faraday test-room construction, high-security compute and initial program/lab purchases; recurring annual costs are substantial (~$5.11M/year) driven primarily by personnel (research staff + MTF), cyber monitoring/AI sandboxing operations, contingency/insurance reserves, and ongoing takedown/monitoring activities.
🏗️ One-Time Capital Costs Total: $1.6M
Long Term Research Program $500K
[#24] Seed funding / programmatic grant for multi-year research (recommended baseline $500k one-time/programmed).
Cyber Crawler Development $300K
[#9] Initial development and robust first-year capability for web crawlers and monitoring infrastructure (~$300k midpoint).
Ai Sandbox Cluster $300K
[#13] Modest high-security compute cluster for AI sandboxing (~$300k).
Equipment $134K
[#1, #2, #5, #6] Secure storage hardware and logging (#1 $1,500); redundant air-gapped backup drives/space (#2 $3,000); air-gapped playback hardware and mechanical rigs (#5 $30,000); sacrificial device inventory initial stock (#6 $100,000). Total = $134,500.
Facilities $125K
[#3] Mid-range estimate for construction/modification of a Faraday-shielded, soundproof, airtight testing room (~$125k).
Malware Analysis Lab $100K
[#12] One-time purchase of forensic hardware/software workstations and tools (midpoint ~$100k).
Incident Response Kits $65K
[#21] One-time purchase of portable Faraday bags, shielded containers, field seizure gear and vehicles (midpoint ~$65k).
Honeypot Sinkhole Infra $50K
[#11] One-time deployment cost for honeypots/sinkhole infrastructure (~$50k).
Signage And Policies $2K
[#17] Initial signage and policy enforcement setup (~$2k one-time).
Initial Research And Lab Setup $0
[]
🔄 Annual Recurring Costs Total: $5.1M/yr
Staff Wages $2.3M/yr
[#14, #15] Dedicated research team (~5 FTEs at fully-loaded ~$800k total) and MTF Kappa-10 operations (~12 agents / ops at fully-loaded ~$1.5M) combined = $2.3M/yr.
Insurance Reserve $1.0M/yr
[#23] Insurance or financial reserve against large-scale incidents (recommended $1M/yr reserve).
Contingency Replacement Fund $500K/yr
[#18] Annual reserve/contingency to replace damaged civilian or critical infrastructure (recommended $500k/yr reserve).
Public Monitoring Takedown $300K/yr
[#25] Active darknet ops, seeding, covert takedowns and operational costs (~$300k/yr midpoint).
Cyber Crawler Ops $200K/yr
[#9] Ongoing development/ops for crawlers and monitoring (midpoint ~$200k/yr).
Ai Sandbox Ops $200K/yr
[#13] Electricity, maintenance, and cloud/GPU time for AI sandboxing (~$200k/yr).
Cover Story And Legal $100K/yr
[#19] Legal coordination, takedown actions, and cover-story/coordination budget (baseline ~$100k/yr).
Continuous Crawler Hosting $100K/yr
[#10] Hosting, bandwidth, storage, and continuous scanning cloud/server costs (~$100k/yr).
Intelligence Liaison $75K/yr
[#20] Fees and access costs for closed forums, data feeds, and threat intelligence (~$75k/yr midpoint).
Logging Siem Archival $65K/yr
[#22] Centralized logging, SIEM operations, and cold storage for captured instances (~$65k/yr midpoint).
Misc It Security $62K/yr
[#27] IT security hardening, EDR/NAC licenses, audits and segmentation (~$62.5k/yr midpoint).
Communications Pr Contingency $50K/yr
[#28] Ongoing PR contingency budgeting for potential public leaks (~$50k/yr budgeted).
Malware Analysis Licenses $35K/yr
[#12] Annual licenses and maintenance for forensic tools and analysis suites (~$35k/yr).
Honeypot Ops $30K/yr
[#11] Annual ops cost for honeypots/sinkholes and takedown workflows (~$30k/yr).
Training And Sops $30K/yr
[#16] Annual training, SOP updates, and safety briefings (~$30k/yr).
Facilities Maintenance $20K/yr
[#4, #26] Annual Faraday/soundproof maintenance, re-grounding, seal replacements and certification (est. $10k + $10k = $20k/yr).
Supplies And Consumables $20K/yr
[#7, #8] Consumables and cleanup supplies budget ($10k/yr) plus hazardous disposal/EHS compliance budget ($10k/yr) = $20k/yr.
Incident Response Maintenance $20K/yr
[#21] Maintenance/replacement budget for rapid-deploy seizure kits and vehicles (~$20k/yr).
Signage Policy Updates $1K/yr
[#17] Ongoing updates and enforcement for signage and restrictive policies (~$1k/yr).
Research And Monitoring $0/yr
[]
Logistics And Transport $0/yr
[]
⚡ Cost Scenarios
📊 Baseline (baseline) $5.1M/yr
91.0% probability / year
Normal uneventful year with ongoing monitoring, research, MTF operations, and routine maintenance but no major incidents.
no incidents routine testing regular monitoring
🚨 Minor Incident $5.3M/yr
8.0% probability / year +$200K vs baseline
Localized incident or test causing device losses, cleanup, modest field deployments and PR/legal actions.
single-site outbreak field seizure operation containment-testing damage
🚨 Major Breach $8.1M/yr
1.0% probability / year +$3.0M vs baseline
Widespread propagation or a field event damaging critical third-party infrastructure requiring major replacement, insurance draws, large-scale takedown and extended ops.
multi-site infection critical-infrastructure impact public exposure requiring major PR/legal response
👥 Personnel 17 total
Role Count Notes
Research Scientist 5 [#14] Dedicated interdisciplinary research staff (malware analysts, acoustic/firmware researchers, AI analysts); headcount chosen to match ~$800k/yr research wage budget.
Security Officer / MTF Agent 12 [#15] MTF Kappa-10 operational team size estimated to align with ~$1.5M/yr fully-loaded operations/personnel budget.
📋 Confidence Notes
Estimates are based on analyst midpoints and recommended baselines; many line items have wide ranges (especially cyber/infrastructure, insurance, and AI sandboxing). Containment posture choices (minimal vs aggressive eradication) materially change recurring costs, so final budgets have moderate uncertainty.
← SCP-2518 ↑ All SCPs SCP-2520 →