Airtel Proposes Collaborative Defense Against Surge in Cyber Fraud with Jio and Vodafone Idea

Airtel is said to have reached out to Reliance Jio and Vodafone Idea (Vi) with a proposal for a collaborative effort to combat fraud and scams. Reports indicate that Airtel has informed both the government and the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) about its initiative involving these two prominent telecom providers. The company pointed to the increasing prevalence of online fraud and scams in India over the past year as the rationale for its proactive stance. It is also worth noting that Airtel recently launched an artificial intelligence (AI) solution designed for fraud detection across communication platforms and applications.

Airtel Allegedly Seeks Collective Efforts Against Online Fraud

According to a PTI report, Airtel sent individual letters to the telecom operators, highlighting the sharp increase in cybercrime incidents. Referring to available data, it reportedly stated that over 1.7 million complaints related to cybercrime were recorded in the initial nine months of 2024. The total financial impact attributed to these reported incidents is stated to exceed Rs. 11,000 crore.

The communication from Airtel to Telecom Secretary Neeraj Mittal and TRAI Chairman Anil Kumar Lahoti reportedly addressed the concerning rise in certain scams, particularly phishing and URL-based scams. This prompted the company to call for a unified response from the industry against malicious actors. “These complex fraud schemes frequently take advantage of the lack of coordination among service providers,” the telecom operator was cited as saying.

In phishing scams, for example, criminals impersonate acquaintances or representatives of reputable organizations to entice victims into disclosing sensitive information like passwords and banking credentials. Similarly, URL-based scams involve deceiving individuals into clicking on and sharing personal information with fraudulent links that seem legitimate.

In its correspondence, Airtel also indicated that it reached out to all telecom service providers in October 2024, advocating for joint action to address the challenge of unsolicited commercial communications (UCC). This initiative reportedly encompassed practical steps such as the standardized sharing of corporate connection details used for marketing calls.

In May, Airtel announced the deployment of a multi-tier intelligence platform that incorporates AI for the identification of malicious websites. When a user attempts to access a flagged website, the loading process is halted, redirecting them instead to a page that outlines the potential threat.