SIMATIC WinCC is a supervisory control and data acquisition

SCADA

SCADA generally refers to industrial control systems : computer systems that monitor and control industrial, infrastructure, or facility-based processes, as described below:...

 (SCADA) and human-machine interface

Human-machine interface

Human-machine interface is the part of the machine that handles the Human-machine interaction- Overview :In complex systems, the human-machine interface is typically computerized. The term Human-computer interface refers to this kind of systems....

 (HMI) system from Siemens

Siemens

Siemens may refer toSiemens, a German family name carried by generations of telecommunications industrialists, including:* Werner von Siemens , inventor, founder of Siemens AG...

. It can be used in combination with Siemens PCS 7 and Teleperm control systems. WinCC is written for Microsoft Windows

Microsoft Windows

Microsoft Windows is a series of operating systems produced by Microsoft.Microsoft introduced an operating environment named Windows on November 20, 1985 as an add-on to MS-DOS in response to the growing interest in graphical user interfaces . Microsoft Windows came to dominate the world's personal...

 operating system. WinCC uses Microsoft SQL Server

Microsoft SQL Server

Microsoft SQL Server is a relational database server, developed by Microsoft: It is a software product whose primary function is to store and retrieve data as requested by other software applications, be it those on the same computer or those running on another computer across a network...

 for logging and comes with a VBScript

VBScript

VBScript is an Active Scripting language developed by Microsoft that is modeled on Visual Basic. It is designed as a “lightweight” language with a fast interpreter for use in a wide variety of Microsoft environments...

 and ANSI C

ANSI C

ANSI C refers to the family of successive standards published by the American National Standards Institute for the C programming language. Software developers writing in C are encouraged to conform to the standards, as doing so aids portability between compilers.-History and outlook:The first...

 application programming interface

Application programming interface

An application programming interface is a source code based specification intended to be used as an interface by software components to communicate with each other...

.

WinCC and PCS 7 are the first SCADA systems to be specifically targeted by malware

Malware

Malware, short for malicious software, consists of programming that is designed to disrupt or deny operation, gather information that leads to loss of privacy or exploitation, or gain unauthorized access to system resources, or that otherwise exhibits abusive behavior...

. The Stuxnet

Stuxnet

Stuxnet is a computer worm discovered in June 2010. It initially spreads via Microsoft Windows, and targets Siemens industrial software and equipment...

 worm

Computer worm

A computer worm is a self-replicating malware computer program, which uses a computer network to send copies of itself to other nodes and it may do so without any user intervention. This is due to security shortcomings on the target computer. Unlike a computer virus, it does not need to attach...

can spy on and even reprogram infected systems.

External links

• Siemens' WinCC product page