Airtel Launches Fraud Detection Across OTT, Social Media Apps
The strict move comes at a time when rising digital fraudsters use advanced techniques, malicious links and fake profiles to lure online customers
By : Madhusudan Sahoo
Update: 2025-05-15 12:42 GMT
New Delhi: In a bid to identify and block digital frauds, telecom major Airtel on Thursday launched a fraud detection solution across all communication of over-the-top or OTT apps and other platforms such as WhatsApp, Telegram, Facebook, Instagram, email, and others alike in real time. The strict move of the telecom service provider comes at a time when the rising digital fraudsters use advanced techniques, malicious links and fake profiles to lure online customers and deceive them monetarily through such scams.
The service is currently available in Haryana circle and a nationwide rollout soon in the coming days. However, Airtel said that the service would be integrated with, and auto-enabled for all Airtel mobile and broadband customers at no additional cost. “This means, when a customer tries to access a website flagged as malicious by Airtel’s advanced security system, the page load will be blocked, and customers will be redirected to a page explaining the reason for the block,” it said.
“In continuation of its fight against spam, Airtel today unveiled a new cutting-edge solution that will detect and block malicious websites across all communication Over-The-Top (OTT) apps and platforms including emails, browsers, OTTs like WhatsApp, Telegram, Facebook, Instagram, SMSes etc in real time,” Airtel said in a statement.
With the rising threat of online fraud that grows everyday as a result of digital platforms, the service provider feels that it has become increasingly ubiquitous across the country and poses a serious risk to consumers. “There is an alarming surge in such threats in the last few days. Fraudulent schemes have evolved far beyond mere OTP frauds and deceptive calls, with recent reports indicating that millions of individuals have fallen victim to malicious online scams,” it said.
Airtel further said that it has implemented an AI-powered, multi-tiered intelligence platform designed to safeguard customers from the full spectrum of scams and frauds, intending to do so by introducing a threat detection platform that will conduct domain filtering across all platforms and block the link across devices.
“Over the last few years, we have come across several instances where unsuspecting customers have been defrauded by ingenious criminals of their hard-earned money. Our engineers have tried to solve this problem through the launch of our fraud detection solution,” said Gopal Vittal, vice chairman and managing director, Bharti Airtel.
Airtel believes that this service will provide customers total peace of mind while browsing the internet without the worry of getting scammed. “Our AI-based tool scans internet traffic, checks with global repositories and our own database of threat actors in real-time and blocks fraudulent websites. Our solution has already reached a remarkable level of accuracy in the 6 months of trials,” Vittal added.