Quinn Edmonds
3/26/25
CYSE 200
Professor Duvall
SCADA Systems

BLUF: SCADA systems use high tech systems and technological gadgets to operate most of the high tech centers ranging from water plants, power plants, airports, railroads, and much, much, more. “The SCADA acronym stands for supervisory control and data acquisition most notably in ICB or industrial control systems” which is a paraphrased quote directly from the SCADA system article. These systems are used in power and water plants, airports, Oil and gas, and manufacturing (Inductive Automation) The system uses PLC or RTU’s, programable logic controllers and remote terminal units that gather data and send controls from manual input and sensors and display the on the SCADA graphical terminal and screen to authorized users. This whole system has been around since 1960s and has some outdated software, no network separation, and insecure protocols.
The question arises, how do we protect these SCADA systems? One of the biggest dangers is SCADA remote system usage, it is insecure being outdated and not up to par. This is a massive threat to safety as hackers can remotely control the flow of water to dams in some instances. We should use 2 key encryptions to ensure only those who are authorized to operate said machinery are who we send it to and who receives it with their keys. A lot of SCADA systems come with default passwords which is insanely poor for cyber defense.