Dante Sasaki

SCADA’s Role in Risk Mitigation

SCADA Systems and how they benefit society
SCADA Systems are also known as Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition Systems.
SCADA is required in society because their role is to monitor and control infrastructures
like power grids, water treatment facilities, and transportation networks. Based on all of
these things that SCADA helps to monitor, they are absolutely crucial for infrastructure
and can cause bigger problems if people exploit their systems. They are vulnerable to
physical and cyber threats.
Source: http://www.scadasystems.net

Critical Infrastructure Systems Vulnerabilities
There are physical threats and there are cyber threats. Physical threats are either
caused by natural disasters, equipment failure, human error, or sabotage. There is not
much room for growth in the physical threats but as technology advances there are a
ton more cyber threats that come with it. Cyber threats are unauthorized access,
outdated systems, interconnected networks, ineffective security measures, and lack of
encryption. Since technology is always advancing these systems often try to go towards
network isolation to control traffic flow. All of these vulnerabilities can be exploited
because systems not being up to date means there hasn’t been any patches to the
systems and people can continue having unauthorized access. Since technology is well
understood and targeted by attackers/hackers, TCP/IP and ethernet do not contribute
towards the weaknesses that these systems still currently have.
Source:https://www.cyberintelinsights.com.

How SCADA Applications Will Mitigate These Risks
SCADA Systems are absolutely needed for critical infrastructures because they allow
for them to monitor and control these systems. A few of the ways that they mitigate
these risks is by Human Machine Interface(HMI), supervisory stations, Remote Terminal
Units(RTU), and communication infrastructures. HMI gathers and exchanges data
continuously and “The data collected by SCADA systems allows operators to make
informed decisions and ensure the efficient and safe operation of critical infrastructure.”
So that they can secure these SCADA systems they also have supervisory stations
which helps secure their systems for unauthorized access. RTU allows for the system to have efficient monitoring, control, and data acquisition in a remote location. These are
all great ways that SCADA systems play a vital role in mitigating risks towards critical
infrastructures and the people that try to currently hack into them.
Source:https://www.cyberintelinsights.com.

Conclusion
In conclusion, SCADA Systems are crucial for critical infrastructure to stay functioning
so that they have efficient monitoring and have control over their services like power,
water, and transportation. By constantly advancing with technology they can maintain or
even have better security.