SCADA is an acronym for Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition. SCADA systems are used to monitor and control a plant or equipment in industries such as telecommunications, water and waste control, energy, oil and gas refining and transportation. These systems encompass the transfer of data between a SCADA central host computer and a number of Remote Terminal Units (RTUs) and/or Programmable Logic Controllers (PLCs), and the central host and the operator terminals. A SCADA system gathers information (such as where a leak on a pipeline has occurred), transfers the information back to a central site, then alerts the home station that a leak has occurred, carrying out necessary analysis and control, such as determining if the leak is critical, and displaying the information in a logical and organized fashion.

These systems can be relatively simple, such as one that monitors environmental conditions of a small office building, or very complex, such as a system that monitors all the activity in a nuclear power plant or the activity of a municipal water system. Traditionally, SCADA systems have made use of the Public Switched Network (PSN) for monitoring purposes. Today many systems are monitored using the infrastructure of the corporate Local Area Network (LAN)/Wide Area Network (WAN). Wireless technologies are now being widely deployed for purposes of monitoring.