← SCP Cost Explorer Read on SCP Wiki ↗
SCP-4939 Safe ~ medium confidence
SCP-4939
Expected annual
$1.0M
One-time setup
$812K
Annual recurring
$1.0M
Personnel
9
One-time setup costs are estimated at $812,000 driven by secure hardware, software sandbox development, forensic analysis, and a contingency reserve; ongoing annual operations are about $1,015,500/yr driven primarily by staff wages, security, SIEM/support, and legal/cover operations.
🏗️ One-Time Capital Costs Total: $812K
Containment Contingency Fund $300K
[#17] Emergency reserve for rapid response and surge operations.
Equipment $122K
[#1, #2, #4] Enterprise server/SAN/tamper sensors, two hardened viewing terminals, and initial cold-backup hardware/media.
Software Development $120K
[#5] Development of a deterministic sandbox/viewer with formal testing and verification.
Facilities $55K
[#3, #22] UPS/backup power, climate upgrades and secure-room buildout, badge/biometric/CCTV buildout maintenance/installation.
Pam Siem Initial $50K
[#7] Initial PAM/SIEM licensing and implementation (initial/one-time portion).
Forensic Analysis $45K
[#6] One-time contracted digital forensics and incident analysis.
Background Investigations Initial $30K
[#10] Initial deep background checks / psychological screening for personnel pool.
Redaction Initial $30K
[#15] Initial processing/redaction of retrieved documents (assumes ~50 documents at mid-range cost).
Training And Sop Development $25K
[#11] One-time SOP, redaction procedures, initial training development and rollout.
Controlled Replication Testbed $25K
[#20] One-time build of an isolated virtualized testbed and instrumentation.
Counseling Initial Fund $10K
[#14] Initial trauma-response / counseling startup fund.
Initial Research And Lab Setup $0
[]
🔄 Annual Recurring Costs Total: $1.0M/yr
Staff Wages $630K/yr
[#8, #9] Salaries and benefits for containment team and 24/7 physical security staffing (research staff, DB/forensics admin, IT sec, guards).
Research And Monitoring $60K/yr
[#16] Controlled research budget for experiments, analysis compute time, and staff research allocation.
Cover Story And Legal $60K/yr
[#12] Legal reserve, cover-story maintenance and misinformation budgets.
Siem And Pam Support $60K/yr
[#7, #23] Ongoing SIEM/PAM support, licenses, threat intel feeds and updates (recurring portion).
Administrative Overhead $50K/yr
[#25] Program management, procurement, recordkeeping, and miscellaneous admin.
Incident Response Retainer $35K/yr
[#13] Annual retainer for on-call cybersecurity incident response firm.
Software License Renewals $25K/yr
[#19] OS/security tool licenses, code-signing certificates, viewer tool updates.
Controlled Replication Operations $20K/yr
[#20] Ongoing ops costs for the replication/testbed environment.
Periodic External Audits $18K/yr
[#24] Annual red-team/external audits to verify controls and two-person rule adherence.
Background Investigations Recurring $12K/yr
[#10] Ongoing periodic background/clearance checks and psychological screens.
Counseling Services $12K/yr
[#14] Ongoing psychological counseling and debrief services for exposed personnel.
Monitoring And Logging Storage $12K/yr
[#18] Long-term log retention and storage costs.
Training Recurring $10K/yr
[#11] Annual refresher training and compliance exercises.
Facilities Maintenance $6K/yr
[#3, #22] UPS/backup generator maintenance, climate control servicing, secure-room maintenance.
Supplies And Consumables $5K/yr
[#21] Write-once media, Faraday bags, tamper-evident seals, chain-of-custody supplies.
Logistics And Transport $0/yr
[]
⚡ Cost Scenarios
📊 Baseline (baseline) $1.0M/yr
94.0% probability / year
Normal year with regular operations, no unexpected document ingestions beyond initial analysis.
routine_operations no_accidental_clicks no_major_incidents
🚨 Minor Incident $1.1M/yr
5.0% probability / year +$38K vs baseline
Small accidental access event causing ingestion of a modest number of alternate-timeline documents requiring review and limited surge response.
accidental_click small_document_ingestion logged_but_contained
🚨 Major Breach $1.8M/yr
1.0% probability / year +$735K vs baseline
Significant accidental or unauthorized access resulting in ingestion/spread of many alternate-timeline documents and a major containment surge.
multiple_documents_ingested unauthorized_access data_spread
👥 Personnel 9 total
Role Count Notes
Research Scientist / Archivist 1 [#8] Lead researcher/archivist responsible for document analysis and redaction oversight.
Senior DB / Forensics Admin 1 [#8] Senior database and forensics administrator maintaining the isolated server and conducting forensics.
IT Security Analyst 1 [#8] IT security specialist managing PAM/SIEM, sandboxing, and access controls.
Legal / Operations Officer (part-time) 1 [#8, #12] Part-time legal/ops support for cover stories, takedown requests, and operational approvals.
Security Officer / MTF Agent 4 [#9] Physical security staff providing 24/7 secure-room coverage and two-person rule enforcement.
Engineer / Maintenance 1 [#3, #22] Technical support/maintenance for UPS, climate control, and secure-room hardware.
📋 Confidence Notes
Analyst notes provide detailed ranges for nearly all line items, allowing a reasonable baseline estimate; however uncertainty remains around how many alternate-timeline documents will be encountered over time and the scale of potential incident response, so cost variability (especially for incident scenarios) is material.
← SCP-4938 ↑ All SCPs SCP-4940 →