All About SCADA Systems

Mission essential  Methods for the Energy Industry

Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) systems that pick up and manage data across a large facility from a central computer system , play an important role in the utility industry, assisting to manage large and diverse information loads from power plants of all types. Interconnectivity has made these techniques increasingly vulnerable to cyber attacks.

The control systems for the electric grid used to operate in a stand-alone environment without computer system or communication links to an external Info  Technology (IT) infrastructure. Over the past fifteen yrs such stand-alone enclaves have been increasingly connected to both the corporate environment and the external planet, and the utility SCADA techniques are no exception.  laptop and communication network interconnection brings with it the  

probable for cyber attacks on all these systems by adversaries. This is a critical trouble since this kind of attack can affect  various  entities across the country simultaneously. Such attacks get the enhanced potential to result in a cascading negative impact to the Bulk Power System.

SCADA systems are coming in line with  regular networking technologies. Today's generation of [http://www.bin95.com/Industrial-network-security.htm SCADA security] is increasingly using open system architecture to distribute functionality across a wide-area network (WAN) for communication between the master station and communications equipment.

SCADA methods are becoming ubiquitous. Thin clients, web portals, and web-based products are gaining popularity with virtually all major companies. The increased convenience of end end users viewing their processes remotely introduces security considerations resulting in SCADA-based methods being vulnerable to cyber-attacks.

The mission-critical nature of a large number of SCADA systems makes them targets of cyber-terrorist. In a worst case scenario, failure of a SCADA system could cause massive financial losses through loss of data or actual physical destruction, misuse or theft, even loss of life, either indirectly or directly.

SCADA techniques no longer get the benefit of security-through obscurity that might have existed in the past from the usage of specialized protocols and proprietary interfaces. Increasingly, SCADA networks are being connected to the web.

Similar to other networked technologies, SCADA networks must have physical, administrative, and technical safety safeguards.

Security and authentication in designing, deploying, and working SCADA networks is extremely important.  As an example , security devices similar to IPS/IDS, firewalls, and other technological safety measures need to be deployed to help protect SCADA systems. Automated security info management solutions also are  needed to help consolidate the protection logs across the SCADA system wide-area network. Also see [http://www.bin95.com/Industrial-network-security.htm industrial network security] and [http://www.bin95.com/Industrial-network-security.htm industrial networking solutions]