SCADA was once known only by people in engineering or manufacturing companies who needed an easy way to control the processes that were integral to their work. For instance these types of control systems are utilised to control everything from gas flow and distribution to things as simple as traffic lights, but people outside the actual control processes themselves may well have been completely unaware of its existence.
Today, however, SCADA is known all around the world as the increased threat of terrorism has served to highlight the importance of such systems in our everyday lives, and in turn the problems that could be faced if they were compromised.
However, this has served simply to mean that companies who use such control systems simply need to be more secure in the way they do it. Having no security features will leave you open to attack in exactly the same way that removing all anti-virus software would leave your computer open for attack or removing the army would leave our country open for attack.
There are plenty of companies out there addressing any vulnerability with such systems and almost all avenues have now been covered. Removing such processes would be disastrous as the use of such systems is the only way to efficiently and effectively run almost all aspects of industry today.
Any industrial areas not utilising these control processes are almost certainly losing not only a competitive edge, but are also not being anywhere near as efficient or economically sound as they should be. Whilst in the past, the threat of viruses or malware may have put people off using them, today there are plenty of safety processes in place to mean that they can not only be utilised to help improve the running of all industrial processes but can be in a safe and effective way.