New MDRI index reveals 46x resilience loss under cyber-physical attacks

A new study by Isaac Ortega Romero and Ioannis Zografopoulos introduces the Multidimensional Resilience Index (MDRI) for electrical power systems, addressing the growing complexity of modern grids. The paper, published on arXiv (2606.08062), systematically reviews five resilience dimensions—physical, operational, digital-cyber, climatic-external, and economic-regulatory—and finds that conventional single-dimension assessments fail to capture the degradation caused by simultaneous cross-dimensional failures. Using a hybrid methodology including PRISMA 2020 review and snowballing, the researchers identified critical dependencies and developed the MDRI to capture both endogenous couplings and exogenous amplification effects.

The index was validated using escalating cyber-physical attack scenarios inspired by the December 2025 attack on Polish energy infrastructure. Results show that degradation under cascading and simultaneous failures is nearly eight times greater than under isolated stress, while exogenous conditions (e.g., climatic and economic-regulatory stressors) amplify degradation by an additional factor approaching six. Combined, these mechanisms produce a 46-fold increase in resilience loss compared to a single-vector reference. The study highlights that 72% of amplification is driven by exogenous stressors, emphasizing the need for holistic resilience planning that integrates cyber, physical, and environmental factors.