The SCADA (supervisory control and data acquisition) Systems is used to control infrastructure processes (wind farms, gas pipelines, water treatment), facility-based processes (ships, space stations, airports), or industrial processes (manufacturing, production, refining). The concept of SCADA is that the system is the centralized control and monitoring point of the entire site or they tend to spread out over the areas. The SCADA application plays a major role in cyber security most importantly mitigating risks. By mitigating risks, SCADA applications role is to be the backbone and protection for critical infrastructures that are at risk or attacked. Even though most SCADA applications lack security, they tend to monitor and implement risk for organizations. The connection between vulnerabilities that are associated with critical infrastructure with SCADA applications is maintaining a secure environment. The SCADA application has many operating characteristics that come with mitigating and maintaining these risks such as vulnerabilities can exist in each layer of the architecture, SCADA systems cannot be shut down easily for patch management, and the distributed nature of infrastructure adds physical security access control concerns. There are many operating characteristics that come with the SCADA systems to operate and some lead to or are considered complex to critical infrastructures, but today’s technology has multiple capabilities to mitigate these risks. Overall, the role of SCADA systems in mitigating risk and handling vulnerabilities that are associated with critical infrastructures is a security layer and backdoor for protection. Many SCADA applications comes with provisions for mitigating risks which is employing two-factor authentication systems for all remote access, install dial-back authentication provisions, conduct periodic war-dialing audits to identify any unauthorized modems that may present within critical infrastructures, and ensure modem telephone numbers are not publicly published. These are security issues that SCADA systems can protect and implement. These are ways and explanations of vulnerabilities associated with infrastructure systems and the role it plays in mitigating risks.

References
Blume, R., & Pollet, J. (2004, March 1). Mitigating SCADA security risks [Review of Mitigating SCADA security risks]. Hart Energy. https://www.hartenergy.com/news/mitigating-scada-security-risks-51154
Paganini, P. (2013, December 6). Improving SCADA System Security [Review of Improving SCADA System Security]. Infosec. https://resources.infosecinstitute.com/topic/improving-scada-system-security/
(n.d.). SCADA Systems [Review of SCADA Systems]. Scada Systems. Retrieved October 29, 2021, from http://www.scadasystems.net/