India’s rapidly expanding digital economy is being accompanied by a sharp rise in cyber fraud, with scams increasingly moving beyond spam calls and phishing messages to include impersonation, fake banking requests, malicious links, investment fraud and OTP-linked financial scams.
According to the Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre (I4C), Indians lost more than Rs 52,976 crore to cyber fraud over the past six years. NCRB data has also recorded a steady rise in cybercrime cases, even as overall crime levels have declined.
With digital services now deeply integrated into banking, payments, healthcare, commerce and government services, telecom networks are increasingly being positioned as an additional layer of protection against digital threats.
Airtel said it anticipated this shift and launched what it described as India’s first network-based, AI-powered spam detection solution by a telecom provider in 2024. The system combines network intelligence with artificial intelligence to identify and alert customers about suspicious calls and SMS messages.
Over the past two years, Airtel has expanded the initiative under its “Safe Network” programme, with the objective of detecting potential threats at the network level without requiring users to install separate applications or manually report suspicious activity.
The company said its system has now flagged 98.4 billion spam calls, highlighting the scale of unwanted and potentially fraudulent communications reaching mobile users.
Airtel’s Safe Network has also expanded beyond conventional spam detection into a broader set of network-led digital safety measures.
These include OTP-linked fraud protection, malicious-link detection and other safeguards designed to identify suspicious digital activity before it can cause financial or personal harm.
The company said network-level protection can provide an additional layer of security as fraudsters increasingly exploit digital communication channels.
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