In February 2025, the Indian government indicated that it’s planning to use Artificial intelligence (AI) to identify mule accounts where cyber fraudsters park the swindled funds. It was also informed that 399 banks and financial intermediaries have come on board and shared over six lakh suspicious data points, more than 19 lakh mule accounts have been caught, and suspicious transactions worth Rs. 2,038 crore have been prevented. Chairing a meeting of the Parliamentary Consultative Committee for the Ministry of Home Affairs, the Home Minister said that 805 apps and 3,266 website links have been blocked for national security reasons based on the recommendations of the Indian Cybercrime Coordination Centre (I4C), the government’s cybercrime monitoring and detection wing. With the proposed adoption of Artificial intelligence technology, the government aims to detect more mule accounts, prevent cyber fraud transactions, and catch cybercriminals. The ideal goal is to ensure the closure of mule accounts even before it gets operational.
AI vs Cybercriminals in Digital India
In the past 10 years, the number of internet users in India increased 4.5 times. 95 percent of villages in India are digitally connected today. One lakh gram panchayats are equipped with Wi-Fi hotspots. Digital transactions have soared and a total of 246 trillion transactions worth Rs 17.221 lakh crore were made through UPI in 2024. India is a world leader in adoption of digital payment systems with about 48 percent of global digital transactions taking place in India. The contribution of digital economy to GDP is at 12 %.
The rise of digital economy was accompanied by a corresponding rise in cyber crimes. A total of 143000 FIRs have been registered on the I4C portal which more than 19 crore people have used. Over the last four years, fraudsters have swindled the public out of Rs 33,165 crore, with an alarming Rs 22,812 crore lost in 2024 alone. The data points out that Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities in India are emerging as hotspots for cybercrime because these areas are likely less informed about digital threats. The rise of AI have aided cyber criminals in carrying out increasingly sophisticated attacks. AI-enabled cybercriminals to scale their fraudulent operations. Cyber frauds can now attack hundreds of companies simultaneously using AI tools and defraud more organizations with minimal effort. AI tools can be used to create deepfakes of any individual and threaten gullible users by disguising themselves as another person. Deepfakes can malign the image, blackmail the target, or misguide the family members of the victim to part with their money. AI is bypassing traditional security systems and firewalls. AI algorithms are tracking social media activity to create highly personalized social engineering tactics to entrap their prey. Digital arrests are rising even though the government is running awareness campaigns among citizens to not believe in audio or video calls from purported government employees. Deepfake attacks on public personalities like Bollywood stars, Sportspersons and prominent industrialists are rising courtesy easy availability of free AI tools. Financial institutions and banks are soft targets whose KYC systems and customer databases are under attack. In the US, Treasury deparment reports admitted that American banks are finding it hard to keep one step ahead of fraudsters using AI to pretend to be customer and spread malware. The Reserve Bank of India too has issued circulars cautioning the banks to be alert to AI attacks and financial swindling. In such a scenario when digital threats are AI-driven and cyber criminals are utilizing AI conveniently, a swift counter-response in the form of AI-led threat neutralization is an inevitable fact. The Home ministry’s plan to tackle AI-wielding cyber criminals with a fitting AI response comes at an appropriate time.
Conclusion
With the government ministries arming law enforcement and cyber defense experts with AI, an AI vs AI war is expected to play out in the cyber world. AI of Cybercriminals vs AI of Government will ensure relentless competition in the digital space and is poised to result in innovation. The showdown with the government is expected to ensure that most amateur cyber criminals will land in prison soon while sophisticated criminals will have a hard time escaping the clutches of the agencies. It is the Government AI vs AI of sophisticated cyber criminals that will lead to advancements in AI and open a new frontier in the digital forensic space. Every crime whether in real world or cyber space leaves behind a trail that can connect the criminal with the crime. In the case of AI cyber crimes, governments will purely rely on digital forensic evidence to secure a conviction because real-world evidence simply doesn’t exist.
