Overview
This company is one of the world’s largest telecommunications providers, serving multinational enterprise clients, B2B accounts, and corporate partners. It runs centralized B2B portals, corporate account dashboards, API endpoints, and self-service top-up engines across international markets.
Protecting these digital assets means preventing account takeovers and automated fraud, while keeping access smooth for corporate IT administrators and business users under strict global compliance rules.
The Challenge
Securing high-traffic portals and self-service platforms across dozens of international markets created four problems:
- Account takeover and credential stuffing. Telecom portals handle SIM-swap requests, account management, reward redemptions, and mobile wallet top-ups. This made them prime targets for distributed bot attacks using credential stuffing and brute-force logins.
- SMS and OTP fraud. Bot operators automated verification endpoints to trigger huge volumes of one-time-password SMS messages, a scheme known as SMS pumping or toll fraud. The result was a sudden, costly telecom bill.
- Strict privacy rules (GDPR and ePrivacy). Operating mainly in Europe meant tools that collect personal data or use cross-site tracking cookies created serious compliance risk.
- Friction for real customers. Legacy visual CAPTCHAs frustrated subscribers trying to top up, log in, or pay a bill. That drove more call-center contacts and lower use of self-service.
The Solution
The company deployed MTCaptcha Enterprise as its standard, privacy-first bot protection platform across its international portals. Each challenge was addressed directly:
- Adaptive proof-of-work against takeovers and toll fraud. Bots were automating login and SMS verification flows. MTCaptcha applies adaptive proof-of-work challenges behind the scenes, so suspicious traffic from botnet IPs must do heavy computing work. This makes automated attacks too costly to run and protects SMS and OTP gateways from abuse.
- Invisible verification for easy self-service. Image puzzles had disrupted account management and mobile app logins and pushed customers toward expensive call-center support. MTCaptcha checks browser and risk signals in the background and verifies over 95% of legitimate subscribers invisibly, so account access stays fast.
- GDPR-aligned, privacy-first design. Many CAPTCHA tools track behavior across sites, which creates compliance risk under EU privacy law. MTCaptcha collects no personally identifiable information and sets no persistent tracking cookies, so it could be deployed across the company’s European operating companies with confidence.
- Built-in WCAG 2.1 AAA accessibility. Essential utility services must meet strict accessibility laws. MTCaptcha provides full keyboard navigation, screen-reader support, high-contrast modes, and audio challenges out of the box, giving every subscriber equal access to self-service portals.
The Results
By standardizing on MTCaptcha across its consumer and enterprise self-service portals, the company strengthened endpoint security and improved the subscriber experience.
Business Impact
With MTCaptcha in place across its international markets, the company sharply reduced bot-driven account threats and toll fraud, supported its GDPR privacy requirements, and gave millions of daily subscribers a smooth, low-friction experience.
