Topic summary
Industrial control systems
Extracted from the Wikipedia article Industrial control system.
SCADA systems
The SCADA concept was developed as a universal means of remote access to a variety of local control modules, which could be from different manufacturers, allowing access through standard automation protocols. In practice, large SCADA systems have grown to become very similar to distributed control systems in function, but using multiple means of interfacing with the plant. They can control large-scale processes that can include multiple sites and work over large distances. This is a commonly used architecture industrial control systems, however there are concerns about SCADA systems being vulnerable to cyberwarfare or cyberterrorism attacks.