SCADA Systems

SCADA (Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition) systems are industrial control systems that monitor and control physical processes — power generation and distribution, water treatment, oil and gas pipelines, manufacturing operations, and transportation infrastructure. A SCADA system comprises remote terminal units (RTUs) or programmable logic controllers (PLCs) that interface with physical equipment, a communication infrastructure that transmits data and control signals, and a human-machine interface (HMI) that operators use to monitor and control the system. SCADA is the software layer between human operators and physical infrastructure.

SCADA cybersecurity is uniquely challenging because operational technology environments were designed for reliability and availability, not security. Most SCADA systems were built before cybersecurity was a serious concern — running on unpatched operating systems, communicating over unencrypted protocols, and designed with air gaps that no longer exist in the age of remote monitoring and vendor maintenance connections. The convergence of IT and OT networks has connected these legacy systems to the internet (directly or indirectly) without the security architecture to protect them. Volt Typhoon, the PRC-linked threat actor, has demonstrated sustained access to US critical infrastructure SCADA systems — waiting for the opportune moment to cause physical damage.

NERC CIP standards (for electric utilities) and NIST SP 800-82 (for industrial control systems generally) provide the regulatory and technical frameworks for SCADA security. But compliance with these frameworks is necessary without being sufficient — a utility can be NERC CIP compliant on paper while having undetected persistent threat actor access. The engineering challenge is building SCADA security that actually detects and responds to sophisticated adversaries, not just satisfies compliance checklists.

We architect security for SCADA and industrial control system environments — implementing OT network segmentation, deploying passive monitoring that detects anomalous behavior without disrupting real-time control, integrating OT security monitoring with IT security operations, and satisfying NERC CIP and NIST 800-82 requirements at the architecture level. Our teams understand the operational constraints of SCADA environments where a false positive can shut down physical infrastructure.

Compliance-Native Architecture Guide

Design principles and a structured checklist for building software that is compliant by default — not compliant by retrofit. Covers data architecture, access controls, audit trails, and vendor due diligence.