Survey of SCADA security challenges and potential attack vectors

SCADA systems run silently in the background of our power generation plants, manufacturing facilities, and many other critical infrastructure resources. Even though these SCADA systems are critical in nature, the IT community often poorly understands them. As a result, security of SCADA systems has been neglected, even though companies have improved their security posture to meet regulatory demands. This paper will explore some of the weaknesses in SCADA based system security and the effectiveness of current security techniques. In addition, new methods and tools will be proposed to augment SCADA system security strategies.