The present disclosure is directed to a method and system for automatic triggering network management (NM) control for Voice-Over-IP (VoIP) border elements (BE). The method detects call storm events by monitoring blocked call error messages and maintaining counts according to telephone number based control strings, and controls call storm events by limiting the admitted call rate for calls matching a control string according to an adaptive leaky bucket control. The control drain rate is updated periodically based on a calculated successful call rate and is set to somewhat exceed the successful rate. A control is automatically removed when no blocked calls are observed for a specific number of consecutive windows.