Telenet Group reduces risk and enhances Customer Trust

As one of Belgium’s largest telecommunications companies, serving nearly 5 million customers across Belgium, Telenet group prides itself on using digital connectivity to improve people’s lives and help companies stay ahead. To this end, Telenet group has fostered a culture of innovation not only with their products, but in their internal operations and the experiences they give their customers.

It was this culture of innovation that motivated Telenet group to implement Okta Workforce Identity in 2020. At the time, Telenet group’s on-premise identity and access management solution required constant maintenance and lacked the flexibility Telenet group required. With more than 14,000 users needing regular access to Telenet group’s services, which included more than 95 on-premise environments and 50 SaaS applications, Telenet group needed a flexible identity platform that could dynamically cater to these environments and provide adaptive authentication processes. By migrating to Okta Workforce Identity, with support from longstanding partner Upright Security, Telenet group gained a secure, cost-effective solution that allowed them to innovate and meet customers’ and employees’ changing needs, without their large on-premise footprint standing in the way.

Since then, Okta has easily enabled Telenet group to scale up its use of Workforce Identity to cover more than 15,000 active users, with 500 apps now secured with Adaptive Multi-factor Authentication (aMFA), making Telenet group’s login processes faster and more secure. Where Captcha-based logins used to take 45 seconds, users can now verify their identity with a push login for almost instant access. Telenet group has now also begun rolling out Okta FastPass to enable passwordless logins for employees. By replacing passwords with biometric checks, Telenet group is providing more convenient access to its workforce, while increasing security with phishing-resistant authentication.

“The culture of innovation at Telenet group is now even more important than it was a few years ago,” explains Guy Broothaers, identity and access management team manager at Telenet group. “As the telecom market in Belgium continues to mature, we constantly need to innovate to remain competitive. Workforce Identity has given us the agility we need to innovate at pace.”

Having used Okta to increase efficiency and unlock greater innovation across the organization, Telenet group then turned to using identity to give their customers the experiences they expect.

Their commitment to exceptional customer experiences drives growth opportunities across their consumer and business customer bases. However, Telenet group’s custom-built on-premise customer identity solution was limiting their ability to provide such experiences, as Steven Holvoet, product owner – digital, explains.

“At Telenet group we are determined to delight our customers,” says Steven Holvoet, who is responsible for customer identity journeys at Telenet group. “Standout customer experiences require exceptional customer identity and access management (CIAM) capabilities, but our previous system lacked the capabilities to deliver on our strategic ambitions. Our customers were comparing our identity and login journeys with those of other platforms. They expected capabilities such as passwordless login and two-factor authentication, which we were missing.”

Telenet group identified an opportunity to strengthen its customer identity solution in response to evolving security challenges. Like many organizations, the company recognized the importance of addressing risks associated with password reuse and the potential for misuse of digital services. By enhancing its approach, Telenet group aimed to reduce remediation efforts and deliver a more secure, seamless experience for its customers.

Telenet group knew their existing identity solution had reached the limit of its capabilities. The company also knew that developing an in-house solution would divert their focus from the core business and leave them constantly playing catch-up with the latest features of an out-of-the-box solution.

Telenet group assessed multiple vendors and was impressed with the stability of Okta’s cloud-based solution. This solution would give Telenet group the scalability to handle the growing peaks in customer traffic on their streaming platform. Telenet group also recognized that with Okta Customer Identity, they would achieve a powerful balance of security and user experience. The decision to expand their use of Okta was a simple one, and Telenet group set about migrating to Okta Customer Identity, with support from implementation partner Upright Security.

Telenet group was determined to ensure their migration didn’t negatively impact their customers and worked closely with the Upright Security team to minimize disruption, ultimately completing the phased migration within four months. “Upright Security team played a pivotal role in ensuring a smooth and effective implementation of the platform across our organization,” says Steven Holvoet. “They were not only responsive but truly proactive — offering strategic advice tailored to our environment, helping us optimize configurations, and ensuring we were set up for long-term success.”
One of the biggest hurdles was integrating Okta with Telenet group’s legacy systems and capabilities. Previously, customers often logged in using aliases for email accounts, or mobile phone numbers for other services, and Telenet group wanted to allow them to continue. With the help of the Upright Security team, Telenet group used multiple identifiers within Okta Identity Engine to recognize and accept customers’ existing credentials, instead of forcing them to use a single, new identifier. Meanwhile, with Okta Lifecycle Management, Telenet group kept customer passwords synchronized with their on-premise user database, allowing customers to continue using existing logins to access services like their Outlook or Apple Mail accounts without disruption. By supporting these diverse login options, Telenet group was able to migrate to Okta Customer Identity with minimal disruption to customers.

This seamless migration was made possible with Okta’s password import inline hook, a key component of lazy migration. This allows users’ passwords to be securely imported into Okta when they log in for the first time, making the transition completely transparent to the end user. This approach meant Telenet group didn’t need to ask customers to change their passwords, ensuring they weren’t adversely impacted by the transition. Additionally, Okta Machine-to-Machine authentication enabled Telenet group to securely manage the backend communication between their applications and services after the migration, ensuring a robust and secure environment for the digital ecosystem.

Now, with Okta Customer Identity, Telenet group can offer customers the experiences they demand, without compromising on security. With Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA), customers have an easier and more secure way to log in to their Telenet group accounts. Customers wanting to manage their contracts or watch their favorite shows no longer need to remember their passwords. Instead, they can receive an SMS code on their phone, use their authenticator app of choice, including local Belgian identity provider, itsme, or use passkeys to log in quickly and securely. Forty percent of all customer authentications are now passwordless, resulting in a 63% reduction in password resets and a 5% higher overall login success rate.

While Telenet group allows customers to opt in to use MFA for most interactions, the company uses step-up authentication for sensitive transactions like buying streaming services or creating mailboxes. As Guy Broothaers explains, “In Belgium and across Europe, regulatory requirements around security are significantly increasing, so we need to ensure we are continually hardening our security posture. Step-up authentication from Okta allows us to achieve this security and compliance while giving our customers a smooth experience.”

In addition to securing customer logins with MFA, Telenet group uses Okta authentication policies to set granular rules for password complexity and history and automated account protection features to automatically lock suspicious accounts. By taking this proactive approach to combating fraud, Telenet group achieved a 30% reduction in compromised accounts and identity abuse cases, significantly enhancing the company’s security posture and brand reputation.

This improved reputation and seamless customer experiences has helped to drive business growth. “When it comes to large RFPs, CIAM has become a knockout qualifier,” explains Steven Holvoet. “With Okta Customer Identity, we now have capabilities that we didn’t have in the past, enabling us to win big business contracts, such as with the Flemish government.”

Looking ahead, Telenet group continues to leverage its partnerships with Okta and Upright Security to continue ramping up security while offering more frictionless user journeys. Specifically, they plan to implement adaptive MFA for customers, which will enable them to implement step-up authentication for suspicious logins. Telenet group also plans to make full use of ThreatInsights to proactively identify compromised credentials and prompt customers to reset them, strengthening Telenet group’s position as a company dedicated to the highest levels of security and customer satisfaction.

For Steven Holvoet, these plans fit perfectly with Telenet group’s determination to continue to provide the best customer experiences. “Okta has helped us meet the challenges we faced, increasing our security posture and tackling fraud, while providing customers the enjoyable identity experiences they demand,” says Steven Holvoet. “And with many Okta capabilities still to be rolled out, we are excited about what’s to come.”