What is SCADA?

SCADA – Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition – is an automated software control system that monitors industrial control systems (ICS) and provides data insights to industrial supervisors about the condition of the entire operation. While a SCADA system is automated, the data output is monitored by human eyes in a separate control room through a graphical user interface.

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What is SCADA?

How SCADA systems work?

Business decisions are best made when driven by accurate data. In the industrial world, that critical data is collected by sensors, controllers, and other types of IoT-enabled tech that display real-time data over a network. This data – and the network – is monitored by SCADA software.

SCADA systems display operating processes to the human controller, including status messages and alerts. SCADA systems operate devices through switches that turn them on or off. This is an automatic process; however, sometimes human intervention is required.

 

Human operators can use the interface to make changes to the operating processes in real-time. These changes might include turning valves on/off and changing the temperature of a thermostat.

 

A control unit connected to the SCADA system collects and passes data over the network where it’s collected for making data-driven decisions.

 

Once a large amount of data has been collected, the system converts that data into a more useful format. Since the data is being collected from multiple sensors, automation (including a Human-Machine Interface) is used to gather and process the data quickly and efficiently.

Key tasks performed by IoT industrial controls SCADA

  • A SCADA system feeds data to a graphical user interface or dashboard. That data is then monitored by humans.
  •     IoT devices connected to the network are monitored.
  •     Collected data is generally stored in a cloud server.
  •     SCADA sensors detect small changes in the environment including temperature and sound.

Secure Your ICS Environments

Every IoT device connected to a network is a potential security vulnerability. Your industrial control system environments need to be properly secured to prevent cyber-criminals from attacking.

ICS environments are routinely attacked by hackers who try to disable or hijack controllers and sensors.

Top Tips for Protecting Your ICS Environments From Cyber Threats

  •     Educate yourself. If you’re in the healthcare industry, check out our “Secure Your Everything in Healthcare” webinar for IoT protection strategies that block ransomware attacks, secure medical devices, and protect patient medical records.
  •     Monitor your systems closely. If you don’t monitor your control systems, you’re vulnerable to attack. The best way to monitor your ICS is with SCADA.
  •     Automate segmentation. Make sure your cyber-security solution maintains proper access restrictions to IoT devices and all networks.
  •     Utilize threat intelligence. Stay ahead of new threats with threat intelligence solutions that aggregate intelligence from 100 million endpoints, gateways, and IoT devices worldwide.

Check Point security solutions for ICS environments

Check Point provides superior protection for every ICS environment. Our IoT security solutions will secure all your devices across any network in any environment.

 

With Check Point, you’ll be protected from network and device-level attacks. Our cyber-security solutions mitigate device-level attacks before they’re compromised. Check Point also provides virtual patching for your most vulnerable devices.

 

Contact us today to start securing your ICS environment.

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