Power grids. Hospitals. Transportation networks. Water treatment facilities. These aren’t just elements of national infrastructure—they’re the lifeblood of modern civilization. And they are under attack.

In 2025, cyberattacks on critical infrastructure are not hypothetical. They are weekly events with global implications. Sophisticated threat actors—sometimes state-sponsored, often ideologically motivated—are probing the digital seams of essential services looking for soft entry points.

Earlier this year, India’s government revealed that it had intercepted and mitigated over 200,000 cyberattacks aimed at its electrical grid. The operation, codenamed Sindoor, relied on AI-powered threat intelligence and a coalition of public-private defenders. Had it failed, large swaths of the subcontinent could have gone dark—crippling hospitals, airports, and financial systems.

Healthcare remains one of the most frequently targeted sectors. The Universal Health Services (UHS) network now fends off more than 7 million intrusion attempts per day. Many are brute-force attacks targeting legacy systems. Others are more insidious—attempting to manipulate electronic health records, compromise IoT-connected medical devices, or freeze scheduling systems at peak hours.

The reason these targets are so attractive is simple: urgency. Hospitals can’t afford downtime. Energy grids can’t pause for remediation. This makes them ideal candidates for extortion. Threat actors know they can command higher ransoms, force quicker decisions, and leverage public pressure to their advantage.

These systems are also inherently difficult to secure. Many run on outdated operating systems that can’t be easily patched. Their networks lack segmentation. And operators often lack the cybersecurity resources of traditional enterprises. A significant portion of critical infrastructure is still reliant on air-gapped assumptions that no longer hold in a cloud-connected world.

Efforts to modernize these environments are underway. Governments are launching national resilience programs, mandating stricter controls, and funding modernization efforts. But these are long-term projects. In the short term, infrastructure remains exposed—and adversaries know it.

The path forward requires more than technical fixes. It demands partnerships: between governments and private companies, between utilities and technology vendors, and between sectors that have historically operated in silos. Real-time threat sharing, rapid response protocols, and dedicated ICS (Industrial Control System) cybersecurity training are now essential components of national defense.

When the lights go out in a major city, it won’t be a power failure. It will be a cyber event. And unless proactive defenses are in place, it won’t be a question of if, but when.