Have you ever watched a cyber movie where the antagonist destroys the mainframe of a computer, and then the next thing you see is a disaster like the power grid going out? Well, the truth is, these incidents can very much happen in the real world to any population. SCADA Systems, Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition, are systems that allow organizations to control and monitor critical infrastructure. These centralized systems allow data collection from sensors, terminals, and communication and are in most critical infrastructures like water treatment facilities, power plants, oil, and any of the big commercial organizations.
One may think the way SCADA systems are full proof and most effective when it comes operations, it turns out there are a lot more factors behind the scenes. SCADA Systems were originally designed not to factor in modern day cybersecurity measures. This posses a major flaw, because many systems in use today are often outdated software and hardware wise. Many of these systems are far more vulnerable and opens risks for cyber attacks are we try to integrate these systems into the Internet Age.
Some of these recent attacks include Wanna Cry, Stuxnet, and plant attacks between Russia and Ukraine.
Now that we have addressed why many of these systems are outdated and prone to attacks, we can focus on mitigation techniques that organizations are following suit to prevent attacks. On the network side efforts can be focused on Network Segmentation, this is a method that splits networks into segments that allow different machines to have higher privilege access than others. Firewalls allow network traffic to be filtered and act as a barrier protection from attackers. Updating Intrusion Detection Systems, IDS, ensures protection by real-time monitoring the network to see if there are any flaws or anomalies while processes are running.
Aside from that we also have efforts in cybersecurity by regulating SCADA systems. With the rise of Artificial Intelligence and The Internet of Things organizations need to be ready to enforce policy and regulations to make sure the data is safe. Organizations will need to learn how to balance the use of
SCADA systems to allow security and efficiency. Education in the cybersecurity field at the start is also especially important to the general public can get a better understanding of how these systems work and create an environment of a safety net.
SCADA Systems are important because they run the world. These systems control the resources that every person uses during their day to day. It is important that we keep these systems well protected and update to date. As we race for new technologies and innovation, we must also not forget that our current systems are just as, if not more important to how the world operates.

References

R. G. Popa and O. Cangea, “Securing SCADA Systems – Cyber Threats & Techniques. Case Study,” 2021

13th International Conference on Electronics, Computers and Artificial Intelligence (ECAI), Pitesti,

Romania, 2021, pp. 1-6, doi: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/9515124

Author links open overlay panelGeeta Yadav a, et al. “Architecture and Security of SCADA Systems: A Review.” International Journal of Critical Infrastructure Protection, Elsevier, 8 Apr. 2021, www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1874548221000251 . Accessed 12 Nov. 2024.

A. Sajid, H. Abbas and K. Saleem, “Cloud-Assisted IoT-Based SCADA Systems Security: A Review of the State of the Art and Future Challenges,” in IEEE Access, vol. 4, pp. 1375-1384, 2016, doi:

10.1109/ACCESS.2016.2549047 https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/document/7445139

The Rapidly Evolving World of SCADA Systems. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.stanleyconsultants.com/solutions/asset–management/blog/the–rapidly–evolving–world–ofscada–systems—why–upgrades–are–essential

Will Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) replace SCADA? (n.d.). Retrieved from https://upkeep.com/learning/will–industrial–internet–of–things–iiot–replace–scada/

Townshend, A. (2023). Minimizing risks and boosting efficiency: the importance of upgrading outdated supervisory control and data acquisition systems. Retrieved from https://www.controldesign.com/connections/data–acquisition–monitoring/article/33009406/minimizingrisks–and–boosting–efficiency–the–importance–of–upgrading–outdated–supervisory–control–and–dataacquisition–systems