-APS NOORPURI
Chandigarh, 25 September 2026:* India’s digital economy is expanding rapidly, but cyber fraud is growing alongside it in both scale and sophistication. What was once largely limited to spam calls and phishing messages has developed into a wider ecosystem of fraud, including impersonation scams, fake banking requests, malicious links, investment fraud, and OTP-linked financial scams.
Government and industry data suggest the threat is now both widespread and increasingly organised. According to the Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre (I4C), Indians lost more than ₹52,976 crore to cyber fraud over the last six years. NCRB data also shows a steady rise in cybercrime cases, even as overall crime levels across the country have declined.
As digital services become more deeply embedded in everyday life, across banking, payments, healthcare, commerce, and government services, telecom networks are expected to play a larger role in digital safety. Users increasingly expect networks not just to provide connectivity, but also to identify and reduce risks linked to digital communication.
Two years ago, Airtel anticipated this shift and took a first-mover approach to customer protection. In 2024, Airtel launched India’s first network-based, AI-powered spam detection solution by a telecom provider, bringing together network intelligence and artificial intelligence to protect customers from spam calls and SMSs.
Since then, Airtel has expanded its AI-powered Safe Network initiative over the past 2 years as part of a broader push toward network-level fraud prevention. The aim is to create security systems that work in the background, without requiring customers to install additional apps or manually report threats.
Airtel’s Safe Network has evolved into a broader suite of network-led digital safety tools. Its major components include:
OTP-linked fraud protection: Airtel has introduced AI-based protection designed to identify and intervene when users are being manipulated into sharing OTPs or other sensitive credentials during suspicious interactions.
Malicious link detection: Before launching OTP fraud detection, Airtel rolled out a system to identify fraudulent websites and suspicious links in real time. Since deployment, it has blocked more than 1.62 million malicious links shared through SMS, messaging apps, emails, and browser redirects for all mobile and Wi-Fi broadband subscribers.
Spam call and message detection: In September 2024, Airtel launched an AI-driven spam detection system at the network level. Since then, the company says it has identified more than 98.4 billion spam calls and 4.4 billion spam messages.
Business name display: Airtel has also introduced business name display capabilities to help users distinguish verified enterprise calls from potentially fraudulent or fake numbers, reducing the risk of impersonation scams involving fake banking and customer care representatives.
Airtel’s Safe Network initiative reflects a broader shift in the telecom industry, where networks are increasingly expected to move beyond connectivity and play a more active role in securing India’s fast-expanding digital ecosystem.