Future contests for maritime advantage will be fought with code, data and autonomous machines, alongside warships and missiles. As ports, shipping lanes and undersea infrastructure become dependent on digital networks, vulnerabilities once confined to cyberspace are acquiring tangible consequences at sea.
Maritime strength is no longer measured by hulls, tonnage and missile range; it now also hinges on digital capabilities and resilience. The military applications of AI, proliferation of unmanned underwater vehicles and growing reliance on low-Earth orbit satellites are expanding the digital grey zone in which states and non-state actors can undermine maritime security.
These risks take centre stage on October 29, when Greece, holding the UN Security Council (UNSC) Presidency, convenes a high-level briefing in New York on emerging technologies and international peace and security, with particular attention to maritime security.
The vulnerability is not hypothetical. When the October 19 deadline set by the cyber-extortion group “n0n” passed, it reportedly made good on its threat, publishing on its dark-web site data stolen from 38 maritime and logistics entities across 18 countries.
Investigations traced the incident to a compromised third-party operational software provider, exposing the supply-chain and trade data of multiple global operators simultaneously. The episode highlights a systemic weakness: modern shipping depends on an interconnected web of electronic data interchange systems, port software and terminal networks, allowing a breach at a single digital supplier to disrupt multiple links across the supply chain. A data breach, a jammed GPS signal or a low-cost drone can nowadays severely disrupt maritime commerce without a conventional naval blockade.
Nor is the danger confined to cyberspace. On October 15, drone strikes on two chemical tankers near Romania’s Black Sea coast left seven seafarers missing from one vessel and set both ablaze. In the Red Sea, Houthi strikes on commercial shipping since late 2023 have forced operators to reroute vessels around the Cape of Good Hope, increasing costs, transit times and emissions. Maritime disruption no longer requires control of the seas: modest capabilities can threaten vital shipping corridors, endanger crews and impose costs far beyond the immediate target.
For India, whose security and prosperity depend on the Indian Ocean and Indo-Pacific’s sea lanes, the October 29 briefing offers a critical opportunity to press for a maritime-security agenda that addresses emerging digital and technological threats.
As a major maritime power and the world’s second largest provider of seafarers, India has long advocated cooperative ocean governance and brings relevant experienceto the debate. Its ratification in 2015 of the ILO Maritime Labour Convention commits it to internationally agreed standards for seafarers. During an earlier Indian UNSC presidency, Prime Minister Narendra Modi chaired the Council’s first dedicated session on maritime security on August 9, 2021.
The resulting presidential statement set out five priorities: peacefully resolving disputes, removing legitimate trade barriers, cooperating against natural disasters and non-state threats, protecting the marine environment, and promoting responsible maritime connectivity.
These priorities remain, but the threats have changed dramatically. Digital vulnerabilities and autonomous systems now compound familiar dangers like piracy, trafficking and pollution. The Council’s maritime-security agenda must catch up.
India has invested heavily in Maritime Domain Awareness to detect and track threats at sea that exploit surveillance gaps. Dark fleets, state-sponsored maritime militia, sanctions evasion, piracy and illegal fishing all complicate the task. Yet, awareness alone is no longer enough. GPS spoofing, corrupted data feeds and AI-generated false trails can mislead even sophisticated surveillance systems. The Information Fusion Centre(Indian Ocean Region), established in Gurugram in 2018 and hosting international liaison officers from 15 partner countries, provides a platform for strengtheninginformation-sharing so that maritime awareness translates into timely action.
Whether cargo moves along established shipping routes or proposed multimodal networks such as the India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor (IMEC), linking Indian ports with Gulf rail networks and Europe via Greece’s Piraeus, physical and digital infrastructure must remain secure and reliable. As such corridors develop, their dependence on interconnected transport and digital systems will create vulnerabilities across multiple jurisdictions. A ransomware attack on a rail yard or damage to an undersea cable could undermine confidence in the wider network. India and Greece have a shared interest in showing at the UNSC that disruption in the Indian Ocean can ripple through European supply chains, and vice versa, underscoring that maritime security is a global continuum, not a set of regional silos.
No country can secure the maritime domain alone. India must combine stronger national capabilities with practical international cooperation. Defence Minister Rajnath Singh’s October 14 proposal for a joint India-ASEAN research agenda covering maritime security, cyber threats, emerging technologies and disaster response points in the right direction. India already links partner navies through the biennial MILAN exercise and the Indian Ocean Naval Symposium. The next step is to extend such cooperation to joint research on cyber defence, autonomous systems and the protection of critical maritime infrastructure.
The maritime agenda should progress from dialogue to delivery: joint counter-drone research, secure maritime information-sharing, cyber-audit standards for ports, interoperable maritime-domain-awareness systems and regular exercises involving coast guards, port authorities and industry. India can add value by offering scalable, affordable technologies and practical capabilities that help secure maritime networks. It could also suggest an intergovernmental mechanism for rapidly sharing cyber-threat alerts affecting ports, shipping and undersea infrastructure.
The UNSC must also confront a harder question: maritime infrastructure can now be disrupted cheaply, remotely and deniably. Low-cost aerial and underwater drones have given states, proxies and non-state actors capabilities once confined largely to advanced militaries. The 2022 sabotage of the Nord Stream pipelines, repeated undersea cable incidents in the Baltic Sea in 2023 and 2024, and recent cable disruptions around Taiwan illustrate how critical infrastructure can be damaged below the threshold of open conflict. Establishing responsibility for such incidents is often difficult, creating an accountability gap the UNSC must address. The UN Convention on the Law of the Sea remains central to maritime governance, but cannot by itself resolve all questions concerning attribution, state responsibility and accountability arising from cyber operations or attacks involving autonomous systems.
The IMO’s new Code for Maritime Autonomous Surface Ships, which took effect on July 1, 2026, offers a useful baseline, but the safety of autonomous cargo vessels is only part of the problem. The international community must also develop norms governing weaponised autonomous systems and their use against maritime infrastructure and assets.
Maritime security cannot be divorced from human rights and humanitarian law. Autonomous weapons and AI-assisted targeting raise difficult questions: can a system reliably distinguish military objectives from civilians, and who is accountable when it cannot? Those who design, deploy or authorise such systems cannot be permitted to evade responsibility by hiding behind algorithms. Attacks on maritime infrastructure can disrupt food, fuel, medical supplies and communications far beyond the theatre of conflict. New maritime technologies must be used within existing international law, under meaningful human oversight, with clear accountability and robust safeguards for civilians.
India cannot advocate safeguards abroad while leaving its own maritime systems exposed. It must invest in regular cybersecurity audits at major ports, resilient communications and cyber training for merchant-marine personnel, stronger undersea cable protection, and timely induction of AI-enabled surveillance, autonomous platforms and counter-drone systems into the Indian Navy and Coast Guard. Procurement commitments to Indian shipyards and defence electronics firms will help build an industrial base capable of meeting operational needs. Without institutional capacity, trained manpower and tested procedures, new technologies could create fresh vulnerabilities.
At the October 29 UNSC briefing, India should stress that emerging maritime technologies must not become instruments of coercion or technological monopolies. Properly governed, they can strengthen freedom of navigation, protect commercial shipping, improve transparency and uphold international maritime law. As maritime power increasingly draws on digital systems, India must help shape the international rules governing their use, while building the technological capabilities needed to put them into practice.
(Views are personal)
Ajai Malhotra, IFS (Rtd)
Distinguished Fellow - Emeritus, TERI, former Ambassador to Russia, Kuwait, Romania and Ambassador/DPR to the UN at New York.
