MERCEDES-AMG PETRONAS

FORMULA ONE TEAM

CASE STUDY
ENSURING PROTECTION WITH CROWDSTRIKE AS THE FORMULA
ONE TEAM PUSHES THE THEORETICAL LIMITS OF DESIGN
Formula One™ is a celebration of weekend, all of which is transported to In CrowdStrike, the Formula One team
the extreme: speed, risk, stakes and the trackside engineering team and the found a partner that understands this
success. But while the sport is steeped factory in near real time. distinction. The market leader in cloud-
in adrenaline and emotion, it is grounded based endpoint protection, detection
“As a team we generate, process and and response, CrowdStrike has built
in science and math. The pinnacle of
analyse significant amounts of data, very its reputation on superior protection
motorsport, F1 racing is not just a form
quickly – we must ensure our information delivered at stunning speed. The
of entertainment, but a feat of
systems are an enabler for performance, organization embraces the “1-10-60
modern-day engineering.
not a blocker, but conversely we also rule,” which sets the goal to detect
The Mercedes-AMG Petronas Formula need to ensure they are secure” explains suspicious activity, investigate a threat
One Team is one of the most dominant Michael Taylor, IT Director at the and successfully contain and remediate
forces in F1 today, and a company that Mercedes-AMG Petronas Formula the incident within 1, 10 and 60 minutes,
recognizes the role of technology and One Team. respectively. And, like the Mercedes-AMG
data in competition. The organization Petronas Formula One Team, CrowdStrike
Compounding matters further is the
draws 18,000 channels of data on its is built on a culture of continuous
team’s proverbial “need for speed.”
racing cars, measuring everything from innovation — pushing the boundaries of
pressure and temperature to acceleration “In F1, performance is everything, time is technology and engineering in pursuit of
and force. Vehicles are equipped with our biggest challenge/opportunity” competitive advantage.
as many as 300 sensors, collectively notes Taylor.
generating one terabyte of data each race
FACTS & FIGURES
THE CROWDSTRIKE FALCON
PLATFORM HELPS ORGANIZATIONS:
“Thanks to CrowdStrike, we
know exactly what we're dealing
with, which is a visibility I never
Deploy immediately to had before.”
100,000+ nodes in a day
Rob Thomas
COO, Mercedes-AMG Petronas Formula One
Team

Realize 75%
efficiency gains

Experience a 25X reduction

in resource utilization

“We rely on our partners – in

particular on CrowdStrike – to
make sure that we have the
cybersecurity that will ensure
our success.”

Geoff Willis
Director of Commercial Engineering,
Mercedes-AMG Petronas Formula One Team
 CrowdStrike Case Study

MERCEDES-AMG PETRONAS FORMULA ONE TEAM

AANDRACE TO WIN
A REPUTATION TO PRESERVE
While security has become a top concern security of its data and trade secrets. Mercedes-AMG Petronas Formula One
for every organization, it has reached Team recognized that it needed outside
Another challenge in the racing world assistance to develop and deploy an
a fever pitch for organizations like
is mobility. As part of a global sport, end-to-end security strategy. Taylor
Mercedes F1. Its world-class reputation
the team relocates almost weekly explained that part of the appeal of
as a leader in the racing industry makes
to participate in events in more than CrowdStrike was its business model.
the brand a potential target for a host of
20 countries each year. As such, the The CrowdStrike Threat Graph® is a
digital adversaries.
company doesn’t just need to secure its proprietary security tool that collects
“We’re an immensely successful on-site premises, such as its factory and high-fidelity telemetry from millions of
team in a global sport representing a home office, but also ensure that the endpoints around the globe, analyzing
prestigious brand – which naturally on-the-ground team receives iron-clad and indexing trillions of events per week
makes us a target, so security is of protection no matter where it happens for quick and efficient access. In this
upmost importance” says Taylor. to be. way, clients like the Mercedes F1 team
This focus on security is a relatively “The world is getting riskier and more don’t only have the benefit of monitoring
recent phenomenon in the F1 world. dangerous,” explains Rob Thomas, their own network for suspicious
In today’s threat landscape, risk exists COO of the Mercedes-AMG Petronas activity, but are also able to proactively
well beyond the closed course of the Formula One Team. “Being aware of identify and respond to threats
racetrack. The Team’s intellectual the risks and putting processes and detected by CrowdStrike on other
property (IP) has implications in a systems in place to ensure our security client networks.
number of industries, which means is crucial to our success going forward.”
that the organization must take extra
Like many CrowdStrike® clients, the
precautions to ensure the end-to-end
 THE STORY
“By analysing the millions of data points generated by a vast and
diverse customer base, often in real time, CrowdStrike are able to
provide our team with a comprehensive and clear picture of exactly
what is happening across the globe, 24/7. That’s an essential
ingredient in protecting us from issues long before they become a CHALLENGE
problem” explains Taylor. As “an immensely successful team in a global
sport representing a prestigious brand”
CrowdStrike professionals also integrate with the client team Mercedes-AMG Petronas Formula One Team
seamlessly, acting as strategic advisors, watchdogs and an needed an end-to-end security provider
emergency response team all in one. According to Thomas, one that would protect the company’s IP without
of the most helpful aspects of the CrowdStrike relationship is the compromising the speed and performance of
preparation of an intelligence report before each race. This document its IT system.
outlines the potential threats present at each event and what is
being done proactively to neutralize them. It also includes specific
recommendations for the team, such as what devices may not be safe
to take to the venue or which should be switched off at certain times. TASK
To develop and deploy a holistic solution that
“Thanks to CrowdStrike, we know exactly what we're dealing with, allows the Mercedes-AMG Petronas Formula
which is a visibility I never had before,” says Thomas. “That gives me a One Team to detect and prevent attacks
good deal of comfort.” anywhere in the world.
Geoff Willis, Director of Commercial Engineering for the
Mercedes-AMG Petronas Formula One Team, agrees: “At the end of
the day, Mercedes F1 is fundamentally an engineering organization. We WHY THE MERCEDES-AMG PETRONAS
rely on our partners — in particular on CrowdStrike — to make sure that
FORMULA ONE TEAM CHOSE
we have the cybersecurity that will ensure our success.”
CROWDSTRIKE
The Mercedes-AMG Petronas Formula One
CROWDSTRIKE: SUPERIOR PROTECTION Team selected CrowdStrike because its
cloud-based Falcon platform offers market-
AND STUNNING SIMPLICITY leading threat prevention, detection and
response capabilities, delivered through a
single lightweight agent and enabled through
There is perhaps no greater example of the value of incremental
a team of dedicated security professionals.
optimization than Formula One. Each improvement, no matter how small,
contributes to the overall speed and performance of the car. Insignificant
on their own, these actions, when taken together, enable important
efficiency gains, unlocking potential that is otherwise unachievable
through a siloed design approach.

“Formula One cars are very sophisticated,” says Willis. “In order to
extract the full potential from the car, we operate very close to the
theoretical limits to which it's been designed.”
 CrowdStrike Case Study

MERCEDES-AMG PETRONAS FORMULA ONE TEAM

The Team recognized the same capability protection as a service. As the name One Team to deploy an end-to-end
in CrowdStrike. A revolutionary in the implies, Falcon Complete combines four security solution against threats around
cybersecurity market, CrowdStrike industry-leading capabilities, including the world and the track. Scalable and
combines the best of both worlds: prevention, detection and response, flexible, CrowdStrike solutions are capable
superior protection and stunning IT hygiene, proactive threat hunting, of growing with the organization’s needs
simplicity. The CrowdStrike Falcon® and a 24/7 support team. Through this and responding to an increasingly complex
platform leverages a single, lightweight integrated solution, Mercedes F1 receives threat landscape. Finally, the combination
agent to manage the entire threat the highest level of security maturity of cloud-native technology and a single,
spectrum, including prevention, detection delivered immediately, without the burden lightweight agent make CrowdStrike an
and response. Meanwhile, Falcon’s cloud- of building and managing a cybersecurity effective and efficient solution without
native technology enables continuous program or hiring and training staff. compromising speed or performance.
monitoring of the threat landscape,
“Falcon Complete was a great fit for our “CrowdStrike are a dotted line extension
thus eliminating the need for clients to
team – simple to deploy very quickly, of our IT Department, delivering and
complete manual scans.
along with an intuitive, cloud based operating a key capability, efficiently and
“CrowdStrike ticked every box of our management portal and onboarding effectively” concludes Taylor.
Security Partner assessment criteria – process” explains Taylor.
technically advanced, simple, lightweight
He continues: “The depth and level of
and intuitive toolset, shared values and
expertise which Crowdstrike possess
ethos and a brilliant understanding of
is critical in making the right decisions,
our business context and challenges,”
quickly and effectively, without negatively
explains Taylor.
impacting our business”
For these reasons, Taylor selected
Taken together, the benefits provided by
Falcon Complete™, a turnkey solution
the CrowdStrike Falcon platform enable
that delivers instantaneous endpoint
the Mercedes-AMG Petronas Formula
 ABOUT CROWDSTRIKE
CrowdStrike® Inc. (Nasdaq: CRWD), a global
cybersecurity leader, is redefining security
for the cloud era with an endpoint protection
platform built from the ground up to stop
breaches. The CrowdStrike Falcon® platform’s
single lightweight-agent architecture leverages
cloud-scale artificial intelligence (AI) and offers
real-time protection and visibility across the

“The depth and level of enterprise, preventing attacks on endpoints on

or off the network. Powered by the proprietary
expertise which CrowdStrike CrowdStrike Threat Graph®, CrowdStrike
Falcon correlates over 3 trillion endpoint-related
possess is critical in making events per week in real time from across the

the right decisions, quickly and globe, fueling one of the world’s most advanced
data platforms for security.

effectively, without negatively With CrowdStrike, customers benefit from better

impacting our business” protection, better performance and immediate

time-to-value delivered by the cloud-native
Falcon platform.

There’s only one thing to remember about

Michael Taylor
CrowdStrike: We stop breaches.
IT Director, Mercedes-AMG
Petronas Formula One Team

Begin the conversation today:

[email protected]
crowdstrike.com/f1
 Begin the conversation today:
[email protected]
crowdstrike.com/f1

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