Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) systems are automated control systems that are crucial for industrial organizations since they help to maintain efficiency, process data for smarter decisions, and communicate system issues to help mitigate downtime.

The SCADA system can be used for oil or gas refineries where there are multiple phases of production. Iran had a uranium enrichment facility that was a SCADA system, but it suffered an attack from the Stuxnet virus that attacked the centrifuges. The Stuxnet virus was discovered in 2007, but many believe it could have been there in 2005:

The security of the SCADA system is paramount. A network firewall prevents unauthorized access to the network, then they will use a NIPS as an additional layer. If further segmentation is required, they could use VLANs internally. This is no different from protecting a corporate network.