What does water treatment, pollution control, and waste disposal all have in common? They are all services that are involved in infrastructure, more specifically environmental and sustainable infrastructure. Infrastructure is clearly important to the average person, so what happens when it is poorly developed and what goes into making a reliable infrastructure system, as they are clearly critical?
When infrastructure systems are poorly developed civilizations it leads to crisis. For example, when there are glitches in a fuel infrastructure system this can create an impact on people’s lives in relation to transportation. When the PCS (Process control system) is under attack after a vulnerability has been identified, it can lead to three kinds of impacts on society. The three impacts are people, social, and environmental; each consequence is leveled to justify if it requires mitigation or not (Stamp et al., 2003). By now it is clear that infrastructure is critical to the daily lives of communities across the world. Establishing risk management and considering mitigation of said problems will help to improve these vulnerabilities.
This is where SCADA comes into the playing field. SCADA is a centralized system that overlooks entire complex systems or entire sites (SCADA Systems, 2024). Even though SCADA can be used to help mitigate these risks, SCADA also has some vulnerabilities. One way it can help with the mitigation process is by being efficient. SCADA contains a HMI that is able to provide logistical information like diagnostic data (SCADA Systems, 2024). Having this efficiency a lot more time and in turn saves companies money. Cyber-attacks like cyberterrorism can happen as anyone who sends packets to SCADA can then be in a position to gain access/control of it (SCADA Systems, 2024). Clearly there is still some advancements that need to be made as it has its own weaknesses, however it does serve effective when it comes to mitigation. Just like other systems it has its time and place, its weaknesses and strengths.

References:
SCADA Systems. (2024). SCADA Systems – SCADA Systems. Retrieved October 24, 2024, from https://www.scadasystems.net/.
Stamp, J., Dillinger, J., & Young, W. (2003, May 22). Common vulnerabilities in critical infrastructure control systems. https://www.oe.netl.doe.gov//docs/prepare/vulnerabilities.pdf.