With drones, cyberattacks, and geopolitical flashpoints converging, India’s energy grid is under a multidimensional threat
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Operation Sindoor, launched in the second week of May 2025, targeting terrorist infrastructure sites and military facilities in Pakistan and Pakistan-occupied Jammu and Kashmir, has reshaped India’s security outlook. It has exposed energy as a critical yet vulnerable domain. Once peripheral to military theatres, energy infrastructure such as ports, pipelines, refineries and power grids is now squarely on the frontline.
The deployment of surveillance and armed drones, as well as cyberattacks on critical national infrastructure by Pakistan, has underscored the importance of the security and resilience of energy infrastructure for both economic stability and national security. As India reinforces its military preparedness at the borders, it must also prioritise fortifying energy infrastructure, which sustains its economy, commerce, and society.
Once peripheral to military theatres, energy infrastructure such as ports, pipelines, refineries and power grids is now squarely on the frontline.
Global energy security has entered a new era, where energy infrastructure is becoming a target of choice amidst rising geopolitical rivalries. As the threat actors become increasingly diverse and the threat surface expands, it is crucial to understand that the impact of such incidents goes beyond the battlefield.
The deployment of drones is complicating the threat landscape for energy infrastructure.
Recently, on 16 July 2025, three oil fields in the Iraqi Kurdistan region were targeted by explosive drones. Similarly, in the ongoing Russia-Ukraine conflict, Ukraine’s long-range drones have regularly disabled Russian oil depots and military fuel infrastructure with precision. Earlier this year, during the Iran–Israel hostilities and the drone exchanges, Israel struck Iran’s South Pars gas field, and Iran retaliated against Israel’s Haifa refinery, leading to a surge in Brent crude prices, over 7 percent to US$74 per barrel. Besides, fears over disruption in the Strait of Hormuz triggered emergency stock draws. Previously, Yemen’s Houthi rebels had struck with drones Saudi Aramco’s oil processing facilities at Abqaiq and Khurais in eastern Saudi Arabia in September 2019. These instances underscore how unmanned systems can disable and disrupt vital energy hubs.
In the ongoing Russia-Ukraine conflict, Ukraine’s long-range drones have regularly disabled Russian oil depots and military fuel infrastructure with precision.
These incidents also highlight how energy chokepoints and critical infrastructure are now entangled with real-time deterrence signalling. For oil-importing nations, even short-term disruptions carry outsized economic consequences like fuel inflation, foreign exchange stress, and political backlash. Such volatility complicates long-term investment and insurance decisions for energy firms operating in high-risk regions.
Cyber threats amplify this concern. Cyberattacks, particularly ransomware attacks on energy systems, are a growing concern in the industry, as they have the potential to not only disrupt operations but also cause widespread damage. According to the American cybersecurity company, Sophos, 67 percent of energy, oil/gas, and utilities organisations were hit by ransomware in 2024. The impact of such attacks was demonstrated by the ransomware attack in May 2021 on Colonial Pipeline in the United States (US), which carries approximately 45 percent of all fuel consumed in the country’s East Coast. The attack disrupted fuel supplies in some parts of the US and caused a temporary surge in gas prices, the brunt of which was borne by consumers.
India’s economic ascent rests on a fragile energy foundation. With over 88 percent of crude oil and 50 percent of liquefied natural gas imported, energy is a strategic vulnerability for the country. Key national assets, like the Jamnagar Refinery and ports at Mundra and Kandla, lie dangerously close to the International Boundary and are therefore exposed to hostilities with Pakistan. Indeed, during Operation Sindoor, security agencies intercepted over 600 drones and missiles, 40 percent of which targeted Gujarat and Rajasthan, displaying the long-range strike capabilities of our adversary. Besides, there were blackouts in the border districts such as Gurdaspur in Punjab to protect fuel pipelines and transmission lines from cyber and kinetic attacks. These were not drills; they were real-time responses to credible threats. Therefore, the risks to India are no longer theoretical. The 2021 Jammu Air Force Station drone strike and Ukraine’s ‘Operation Spiderweb’ in June 2025, targeting Russian airbases, have revealed how modern threats bypass traditional defences.
With over 88 percent of crude oil and 50 percent of liquefied natural gas imported, energy is a strategic vulnerability for the country.
Moreover, geopolitical developments exacerbate the situation. For India, which imports around 40 percent of its oil through the Strait of Hormuz, disruptions there pose far more than physical threats by translating directly into economic stress. Recent reports show war-risk insurance premiums for vessels in the Gulf have surged from about 0.2–0.3 percent to 0.5 percent of a ship’s value amid Israel–Iran tensions, a doubling in a week that adds tens of thousands of dollars per voyage.
Growing instances of cyberattacks on energy infrastructure make this a perfect storm. Following the April 2025 Pahalgam terrorist attack, India suffered 100 million cyberattacks. Another statistic noted a significant surge in Distributed Denial of Service attacks against India, two-thirds of which targeted government and energy networks. Reportedly, there was also a hacking and defacement attempt on the official website of Central Coalfields Limited, a subsidiary of Coal India Limited. Additionally, in 2022 alone, petroleum refineries experienced over 320,000 cyberattacks. Furthermore, several malware intrusions by China-linked threat actors in 2020 and 2022 in the power grids in Mumbai and Ladakh have been witnessed. The Stuxnet virus, about a decade and a half ago, had also impacted the power grids in Gujarat and Haryana and an Oil and Natural Gas Corporation offshore oil rig.
As warfare becomes more asymmetric, India must secure its energy assets with military-grade defence, redundancy, and resilience.
India’s Strategic Petroleum Reserves (SPR) are meant to buffer supply disruptions caused by such physical and cyberattacks. However, they currently cover just 9.5 days of net imports, 5.33 million tonnes as of early 2024. Including public refiners, such as IOC, BPCL, and HPCL, stockpiles, coverage rises to 74 days, yet only SPRs are swiftly deployable in emergencies.
Experts urge inland storage, private sector participation, and robust pipeline connectivity. Without such reforms, SPRs are a brittle buffer, not a resilient shield.
India meets the IEA’s 90-day standard in spirit but lacks legal clarity, rapid access, and integrated infrastructure. The INR 5,597 crore earmarked in the 2024–25 Budget for SPR expansion is timely, particularly amid Red Sea tensions and Israel-Iran escalation.
A complicating factor is that India’s SPRs remain concentrated at coastal sites like Visakhapatnam, Mangaluru, and Padur, making them susceptible to long-range missile strikes and natural disasters. Experts urge inland storage, private sector participation, and robust pipeline connectivity. Without such reforms, SPRs are a brittle buffer, not a resilient shield.
India must reframe energy security as central to national defence, not a post-crisis concern. This means moving from reactive measures to a forward-looking resilience strategy.
Key priorities include grid decentralisation through investments in distributed renewable energy systems and microgrids, especially in vulnerable border regions. These systems reduce dependence on centralised assets, enhancing survivability in conflict scenarios and building true strategic autonomy.
A layered, adaptive security strategy will be essential for ensuring the resilience of India’s energy systems in the face of hybrid threats.
For securing energy infrastructure from cyber threats, India has taken several steps, including the establishment of the Computer Security Incident Response Team – Power (CSIRT–Power) in 2024. However, given the expanding and evolving nature of cyber threats, the country needs to adopt a proactive approach with a focus on red-team simulations, utilising artificial intelligence-driven threat detection, and implementing a zero-trust architecture. Another focus area should be expediting the upgrading of the legacy Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition Systems in the energy infrastructure, including power grids. A layered, adaptive security strategy will be essential for ensuring the resilience of India’s energy systems in the face of hybrid threats.
With drones, cyberattacks, and geopolitical flashpoints converging, India’s energy grid is under multidimensional threat. Temporary fixes, such as coastal stockpiles or isolated reforms, won’t suffice. India must integrate energy security into its national defence architecture, combining cyber hardening, decentralised grids, and inland reserves with military-grade surveillance. Resilience is no longer optional; it is the bedrock of strategic autonomy. India faces a stark choice: either proactively secure the arteries of growth or risk seeing them severed in the fog of tomorrow’s wars.
Sameer Patil is the Director of the Centre for Security, Strategy, and Technology at the Observer Research Foundation.
Manish Vaid is a Junior Fellow at the Observer Research Foundation
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Sameer Patil is Director, Centre for Security, Strategy and Technology at the Observer Research Foundation. Based out of ORF’s Mumbai centre, his work focuses on ...
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Manish Vaid is a Junior Fellow at ORF. His research focuses on energy issues, geopolitics, crossborder energy and regional trade (including FTAs), climate change, migration, ...
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