SRINAGAR, SEPTEMBER 25: With digital fraud cases increasing in scale and sophistication, telecom networks are taking a larger role in identifying and blocking potential threats, as users increasingly rely on digital services for banking, payments, healthcare, commerce and government services.
Bharti Airtel said it has identified 98.4 billion spam calls over the past two years through its network-level systems, as part of its efforts to strengthen protection against digital fraud.
The company said spam calls and phishing messages have increasingly become part of a wider fraud ecosystem involving impersonation, fake banking requests, malicious links, investment scams and OTP-linked financial fraud.
Government data cited by Airtel indicates the scale of the challenge. According to the Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre (I4C), Indians lost more than ₹52,976 crore to cyber fraud over the past six years. National Crime Records Bureau data has also recorded a rise in reported cybercrime cases.
Airtel said it 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 suspected spam calls and SMS messages.
The company has since expanded the initiative under its Safe Network programme, with the stated objective of detecting and preventing potential digital threats at the network level without requiring customers to install additional applications or manually report suspicious activity.
According to Airtel, the Safe Network initiative has evolved into a broader set of digital safety tools covering areas such as OTP-linked fraud protection and malicious-link detection.
The company said its approach is aimed at identifying suspicious activity before it reaches users, making network-level protection an additional layer of defence as digital transactions and communications become more widespread.
The expansion comes amid growing concerns over fraudsters using increasingly sophisticated methods to impersonate banks, government agencies, businesses and individuals. Cybersecurity experts have repeatedly advised users not to share OTPs, banking credentials or other sensitive information and to verify suspicious messages and links before taking any action.
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