Identity security company Keeper Security has published a new case study detailing how it protects the credentials guarding Atlassian Williams F1 Team‘s race data across a workforce of 1,200 people operating in more than 20 countries each season.
Key Takeaways
- Williams generates upwards of one terabyte of telemetry, aerodynamic and simulation data every race weekend, fed by 400+ sensors per car across 30,000 data channels.
- The team now manages more than 17,000 credentials through Keeper, replacing the spreadsheets and chat messages it previously used to share sensitive access.
- Keeper layers in Kyber, a NIST-approved quantum-resistant encryption algorithm, to guard against “harvest now, decrypt later” attacks.
Securing a 1,200-Person Global Operation
In a high-profile, competitive sport, the credentials protecting access to Formula 1 data carry the same strategic value as the data itself. More than 400 sensors on each of Williams’ FW48 race cars provide a live feed of 30,000 data channels to engineers both at the circuit and at the team’s headquarters in Grove, Oxfordshire.
Williams uses Keeper Enterprise Password Manager alongside Keeper’s BreachWatch dark web monitoring to centralise credential management across engineering, IT, race operations, travel and marketing functions, replacing the spreadsheets, chat messages and informal workarounds that many organisations still rely on to share sensitive access.
“Many organisations treat credential management as a compliance problem they hand off to a vendor, which leads to security becoming friction. Williams understands they must treat credentials as foundational infrastructure, so security stops being a bottleneck and becomes the foundation that enables speed,” said Darren Guccione, CEO and Co-founder, Keeper Security.
Zero-Knowledge Architecture, With an Eye on Quantum
Keeper’s zero-knowledge architecture means the user’s device generates encryption keys that never reside on Keeper’s servers. Elliptic-curve cryptography, AES-256-bit encryption and Password-Based Key Derivation Function 2 (PBKDF2) protect data at the vault, folder and record levels, with multi-factor and biometric authentication enforced throughout.
Keeper also layers in Kyber, a quantum-resistant encryption algorithm approved by the US National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), addressing “harvest now, decrypt later” attacks, in which adversaries collect encrypted data today intending to decrypt it once quantum computing matures.
“F1 is a team sport. Without all the teams working together on the same task, nothing works. We don’t want security to be the blocker. People need to access what they need, when they need it. With F1, you’ve always got to be thinking about the next race, the next upgrade path, the next regulation cycle. So it’s great to see that Keeper Security is already taking that same philosophy and thinking down the line about how we can protect ourselves from what we know is coming next,” said Chris Hicks, Senior Information Security Engineer at Atlassian Williams F1 Team.
From Factory Floor to Pit Lane
Beyond encryption, Keeper’s shared folders and role-based permissions let Williams automatically provision personnel with the exact credentials they need, while One-Time Share gives contractors and third parties time-limited access that expires without manual intervention. Williams personnel in roles ranging from guest experience to travel administration and cost engineering point to the same benefit: a single, organised place to manage every credential they rely on, whether the team is at Grove or trackside on the other side of the world.
Today, Williams employees use Keeper to manage more than 17,000 credentials across factory and race departments, with access to multiple credentials provisioned in seconds through group-based controls.
