Airtel dials rivals Reliance Jio, Vodafone Idea, BSNL to fight cyberfraud

Bharti Airtel Vice-Chairman and Managing Director Gopal Vittal has written to peers Reliance Jio, Vodafone Idea, and Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL), proposing a platform where all telecom firms could work together to curb the growing menace of malicious uniform resource locator (URL) links or web addresses that are tricking unsuspecting consumers into financial fraud.

  The call for collaboration comes at a time when the government is intensifying efforts to detect and prevent potential cybersecurity attacks. The government has issued new cybersecurity compliance norms to industry stakeholders, especially in light of geopolitical tensions between India and Pakistan. 

In his proposal to create a Joint Telecom Fraud Initiative in a letter dated May 14, Vittal flagged the alarming rise in cybercrimes, largely by brand abuse, where cybercriminals impersonate trusted entities to mislead consumers into “sharing personal, financial, or security-sensitive information”. Business Standard has reviewed the letter. The modus operandi used by cybercriminals include messages with malicious links redirecting users to phishing websites or fraudulent payment gateways.

Victims are duped into revealing sensitive data or, in many cases, making payments. 

 

According to data from the Indian Cybercrime Coordination Centre (I4C) under the Ministry of Home Affairs, India recorded over 1.7 million cybercrime complaints in the first nine months of 2024, leading to financial losses exceeding ₹11,000 crore.

 

According to Vittal, fraudulent URLs are responsible for nearly half of all financial losses from cybercrime, while phishing calls, messages, and sophisticated digital frauds make up the rest.

 

“Given this growing threat, we believe it is crucial for the industry to come together to respond in a unified manner. In this spirit, we propose the creation of a Joint Telecom Fraud Initiative, comprising all telecom service providers, to work together to prevent, detect, and mitigate potential fraud and scam flowing through our networks,” the top executive at India’ second-largest telecom services provider said in the letter.

 

Vittal argued that real-time fraud intelligence sharing among telecom companies would help in quicker identification and blacklisting of suspicious numbers, devices, and behavioural patterns used by cybercriminals. The coordination between networks of the carriers to block fraudulent numbers and SIMs will ensure that fraudsters cannot exploit the lack of synchronisation between networks, he wrote.

 

The top executive also proposed the standardisation of fraud detection policies, protocols, and technology frameworks across all telecom companies, which would not only improve efficiency but also bring uniformity to fraud monitoring efforts.

 

With protocols and standards in place, coordination with law enforcement and regulatory bodies, including the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India and the Department of Telecommunications under the Ministry of Communications would improve significantly.

 

“Additionally, such an initiative would be cost-effective for stakeholders as shared tools, analytics platforms, and threat intelligence will help reduce duplicate efforts and operational costs,” Vittal said. 

 

Queries sent to Bharti Airtel, Vodafone Idea, Reliance Jio, and BSNL did not elicit a response until the time of going to press.

 

Airtel has previously asked telecom companies to pool resources to reduce scam and spam. Last year, the company urged telecom players to share corporate connection data to tackle unsolicited commercial communications, commonly known as pesky or unwanted promotional calls and messages.

 

It then launched its own AI-based anti-spam solution, bundled into its service, which identifies spam calls and alerts users in real time. So far, it has flagged over 27.5 billion calls as spam. The solution now detects and blocks malicious websites across various over-the-top communication platforms, including emails, browsers, and messaging apps such as WhatsApp, Telegram, Facebook, and Instagram.