Liberty Costa Rica has achieved a 99% reduction in SMS spam within weeks of deploying Enea’s Adaptive Messaging Firewall, improving compliance and subscriber experience.
Liberty, the largest mobile network operator in Costa Rica, faced a growing challenge that threatened both subscriber trust and regulatory compliance: a surge in SMS spam. Like other operators in the region, Liberty saw an increase in complaints about spam messages – banking scams, delivery scams, giveaway schemes and a steady flow of gambling promotions. There were also signs that Liberty’s network was used to send spam to US networks, incurring additional costs.
Behind the scenes, the company was keenly aware that regulators across the region had begun taking a tougher stance on messaging abuse. The threat of fines was real and Liberty aimed to address the issue proactively before it escalated. It was obvious that Liberty needed a reliable way to protect subscribers and stay ahead of tightening regulatory expectations, and that it needed to be implemented quickly and efficiently without disrupting operations.
A proven solution delivering timely compliance and trusted protection
What set this project apart was the urgent need to get it operational, combined with the expectation that it would produce immediate, credible results in a fast-evolving environment. Enea provided exactly what Liberty needed: a mature, field-proven messaging firewall capable of operating at scale from day one, supported by a dedicated messaging threat intelligence team that continuously analyses emerging spam patterns and adjusts protections in real time.
This technical strength was reinforced by extensive regional experience as the leading messaging security provider in Latin America and a highly skilled project delivery team with a proven record of deploying complex security solutions under tight deadlines. Altogether, these assets allowed Liberty to deploy quickly without sacrificing effectiveness or operational stability, ensuring the solution was both robust and adaptable to changing threat conditions.
A flexible OPEX commercial model aligned well with Liberty operating framework, enabling the commercial discussions to be quickly resolved and allowing the project to proceed without unnecessary delays or complexity in negotiations.
Deployment took only 6 weeks from project start to the firewall’s activation in the production environment. This was made possible by Liberty’s and Enea’s flexibility, all aimed at meeting tight deadlines, resulting in a lean, fast and pragmatic project that prioritised results without compromising performance.
One key factor that reduced delivery time was that the Adaptive Messaging Firewall already had a comprehensive set of rules ready for immediate use. It supported Liberty with proactive compliance and provided the extensive reporting required by the regulatory authority, Sutel. Additionally, Enea’s experience from neighbouring countries and the North American market, which was the target for much of the spam, shortened the time needed to understand local patterns.
This allowed Enea to quickly block the most common fraud types, such as banking scams, delivery schemes and giveaway schemes, ensuring that immediate improvements could be seen across the network within a short timeframe.
A careful tuning process followed the deployment into live traffic, where Enea worked closely with Liberty to maintain an important balance: identify and block as much spam as possible without creating false positives. This collaboration ensured that legitimate messaging traffic remained unaffected while malicious activity was effectively reduced.
Enea’s threat intelligence unit quickly identified senders, spammers and sending patterns, allowing filters to be refined. This is an iterative process, as spammers quickly adapted after messages were blocked, requiring constant monitoring and adjustment to maintain effectiveness over time.
Understanding spam in Liberty’s services and adding prevention
As the firewall went live, several notable behavioural patterns appeared. Enea quickly confirmed that large amounts of spam, mainly gambling spam, originated from Liberty’s network but were terminated in US operator networks.
What was unique in this case was that the spam was actually being sent from Liberty’s roaming number range, likely as a tactic to avoid detection. However, it was unsuccessful since Enea’s threat intelligence team could detect and control the messages effectively.
This wasn’t the only tactic used by gambling spammers to avoid detection or bypass filters. For example, they often changed their URLs, registering new domains in bulk. Each domain was used for short bursts, about 200 messages, before switching to another obscure, disposable domain like silhn.info, fqzbc.cc or kcghb.info.
In the first few weeks after deployment, over 30,000 scam domains were identified and blocked, significantly reducing the ability of attackers to reach subscribers and limiting the effectiveness of their campaigns.
Complaints drop as spammers fail to get through
Perhaps the most telling sign of success was how quickly the adversaries stopped once Enea’s messaging firewall reliably began blocking their messages. Gambling spam dropped from an average of over 3,100 daily attempts in the first week to just over 300 in the second week, then down to only 16 in the third week.
Within weeks of activation, overall spam volume collapsed. Complaints from subscribers dropped by approximately 99%, and the network experienced an immediate improvement in traffic hygiene and overall message quality.
It became clear that the spammers had realised their messages no longer reached their targets and were probably moving on to less protected networks, highlighting the effectiveness of the deployed solution.
Osvaldo Aldao, Chief Technology and Product Officer, Enea, said operators in Latin America have begun to prioritise messaging security:
“Operators across Latin America are facing increasing regulatory and fraud pressure. Liberty’s results demonstrate that fast deployment and intelligence-driven filtering can dramatically reduce abuse within weeks,” he said.
For Liberty, the outcome was exactly what they needed: a swift deployment of a reliable messaging firewall that ensured compliance, boosted customer trust and delivered measurable results almost immediately across their network operations.
Their team valued not just the technology but also the agility: being able to collaborate effectively, adapt quickly and make decisions that kept the project efficient while ensuring long-term stability and scalability as messaging threats evolve.
In the end, it was a mix of speed, flexibility, technical knowledge and a shared dedication to results that made the project so successful.
And for Liberty, the change was clear: from a growing spam problem with regulatory concerns to one of the cleanest messaging environments in their region – all within just a few weeks.
“Protecting our subscribers is a top priority and Enea’s expertise in messaging security has been instrumental in ensuring a clean and trusted messaging service,” said Daniel Vidaurre, VAS and Roaming Manager, Liberty Costa Rica.
“The results speak for themselves and we are extremely satisfied with the positive impact of Enea’s firewall.”
