Nearly 2 Lakh Risky White Collar Hires Flagged Before Onboarding
Mumbai: IDfy, India’s leading identity Trust Stack with global expertise and enterprise-grade technology solutions for integrated identity verification, has released its Report on Workforce Risks and Hiring Fraud for the year 2025, revealing that Indian companies lost over Rs. 150 crore to employee-led, collusion fraud during the year. The report is based on 4.9Mn real cases processed by IDfy in 2025 and draws on the company’s 14 years of experience in identifying identity, employment, and compliance risks across industries.
In 2025 alone, 195,163 suspicious white-collar hires were flagged by IDfy before they could be onboarded, underscoring how fraud has scaled in both volume and sophistication. This report deep dives into high-risk sectors and trends leading to fraud, while also talking about industry-specific recommendations.
The report finds that fraud in 2025 did not spare any sector and increasingly surfaced in industries once considered low-risk. Telecommunications, a historically low-risk sector’s fraud rate that jumped from 7.7% in 2024 to 10.02% in 2025, and emerged as one of the most vulnerable sectors. Given telecom employees’ access to customer identities, SIM data, and network systems, even a single fraudulent hire can trigger large-scale data breaches and compliance fallout. Consumer-facing industries such as FMCG also reported elevated fraud levels, while insurance, consulting, IT/ITES, and BFSI continued to face persistent hiring and insider risks.
One of the most concerning trends across sectors was the sharp rise in fake and forged documents, which emerged as the single biggest red flag in white-collar hiring. On average, one in every five red reports generated in 2025 was triggered by fabricated paperwork. Education verification was the most exploited CV point, with 69.9% of all fraud cases originating from fake and forged documents, compared to 16.9% in employment credentials. The increasing use of AI-generated degrees, shell employers, and document fabrication networks has significantly weakened traditional verification methods.
Commenting on the findings, Ashok Hariharan, Co-founder & CEO, IDfy, said, “Employee fraud today is no longer opportunistic – it is organised, repeatable, and increasingly tech-enabled. What we’re seeing is not just candidates exaggerating credentials, but entire ecosystems built around fake degrees, shell employers, impersonation, and insider misuse of access. When nearly 70% of fraud cases originate from forged credentials, it’s clear that trust can no longer be assumed at any stage of hiring. The cost of a bad hire today isn’t limited to salary loss; it shows up as data exposure, stalled operations, regulatory scrutiny, and long-term erosion of customer trust. Organisations that don’t verify early and monitor continuously are effectively betting their business on blind spots.”
Fraud patterns also showed a clear geographic spread. While six cities accounted for 40% of all fake document cases in 2024, fraudulent activity in 2025 expanded well beyond traditional hotspots. While metro cities such as Mumbai, Bengaluru, Pune, Gurgaon, and Hyderabad continued to report high volumes of forged education and employment records, newer hotspots, including Thane, Chennai, Gautam Buddha Nagar, Mysuru, and Indore, highlighted how white-collar employment fraud is no longer concentrated in a few urban centres.
Among regulated industries, Banks and NBFCs recorded the highest fraud risk in 2025, with overall fraud rising from 11.00% in 2024 to 12.01%, the highest across all industries. The sector also saw a sharp increase in candidates with adverse legal histories, as court cases and FIR-related red flags climbed from 0.90% in 2024 to 2.53% in 2025. With over 70% of employees in BFSI handling sensitive personal and financial data, a single bad hire can lead to severe regulatory, financial, and reputational damage.
The insurance sector reported an overall fraud rate of 4.85%, driven largely by fake experience claims within advisor networks, and also recorded the highest legal history fraud rate across industries at 2.73%. In IT/ITES, overall fraud stood at 7.55%, with employment fraud rising to 7.38% amid intense demand for specialised digital and AI roles. This sector also recorded the highest incidence of ID proof fraud, at 4.74%, reflecting growing impersonation and identity manipulation risks.
Looking ahead, the report identifies deepfake-enabled impersonation, AI-generated credentials, insider fraud, and the growing use of shell entities as key risks to watch in 2026.With almost 1 in 8 BGV reports turning up red, waiting until onboarding to identify a bad hire is a risk. Pre-offering instant, yet detailed screening acts as a safety net, helping verify who’s genuine before the offer is made. IDfy emphasises the need for early-stage screening, continuous monitoring, and adaptive, AI-led verification systems to help organisations stay ahead of rapidly evolving fraud patterns.
