Protecting Creativity: The Third Floor Secures Intellectual Property with the CrowdStrike Falcon Platform

The Third Floor (TTF) is an award-winning visualization studio based in Los Angeles. With a mission to help the world’s top creatives bring their visions to life, TTF uses cutting-edge virtual tools to collaborate on films, television, games, location-based entertainment and more. 

This innovative work demands robust cybersecurity to protect sensitive intellectual property. But with a small IT and security staff, TTF needed a trusted cybersecurity partner. It found one in CrowdStrike.

TTF adopted the AI-native CrowdStrike Falcon® cybersecurity platform and CrowdStrike Falcon® Complete Next-Gen MDR for managed detection and response to defend its sensitive data and operations. As a result, they have gained streamlined processes, faster issue resolution, comprehensive visibility, and cost-effective security, all of which contribute to greater confidence in the company’s cybersecurity posture.  

Before TTF adopted the Falcon platform, the company relied on a managed security service provider that used SentinelOne for endpoint protection. Nich Durst, TTF’s Global IT Infrastructure Manager, recounted the frustration of frequent false positives, which demanded time-consuming investigations and manual intervention, and disrupted the workflow of TTF’s developers.

“False positives result in cleanup work and I can’t do my job,” Durst explained, emphasizing the effort and time the related investigations required. “It takes an emotional toll when your team is constantly frustrated.” It also took additional time, he added, due to the additional investigation.

Seeking a more effective solution, TTF turned to CrowdStrike. TTF noted the comprehensive offering as well as its strong reputation in the industry.  

TTF has 250 servers and 1,100 endpoints to protect. Durst said he found CrowdStrike’s installation process to be remarkably efficient. Installations took only about 30 seconds per device, with no need for a restart. 

This ease of deployment is largely due to the Falcon platform’s single-agent architecture, which eliminates the need to install and manage multiple agents. The single-agent approach also enables organizations like TTF to adopt a range of capabilities including endpoint protection, threat intelligence, and vulnerability management without requiring additional software.

TTF’s journey with CrowdStrike began with CrowdStrike Falcon® Insight for extended detection and response, managed by CrowdStrike Falcon Complete Next-Gen MDR. 

The change quickly addressed challenges TTF had faced while using a separate managed security services provider to manage SentinelOne. For example, the company was required to do most of its own patch management, rather than the MSSP. Consolidating detection and response, along with managed services, on the Falcon platform removed these inefficiencies.

With Falcon Complete Next-Gen MDR, TTF has access to a global team of cybersecurity specialists at a fraction of the cost of building an in-house team. This expert-led approach provides continuous detection, investigation, and response to stop advanced attacks at any time while delivering visibility and threat context across endpoints, identities, and cloud workloads. This complements the Falcon platform by delivering a lightweight, non-disruptive experience, eliminating the performance issues caused by TTF’s previous resource-heavy approach. 

For Jeremy Oddo, TTF’s Global Director of Technology, both the tools and the partnership have been transformational. “Falcon Complete was exactly what we wanted … both human eyes and AI eyes watching over our security,” he noted. “For less money, we have an entire team that’s chasing the sun and protecting our systems 24/7. It was a no-brainer for us.”

“Working with SentinelOne felt like homework,” Durst added. “With CrowdStrike, issues are often resolved before I wake up.” 

TTF values CrowdStrike’s leadership in AI, particularly its AI-native Falcon platform, which is designed to proactively stop threats using AI-powered indicators of attack (IOAs). These IOAs combine cloud-based machine learning with human expertise, helping customers stay ahead of adversaries. As attacks increasingly occur outside traditional file boundaries, CrowdStrike’s advanced AI and machine learning capabilities offer a crucial advantage, Oddo said.

“CrowdStrike was there a long time ago,” he observed. “Their AI is really honed in and machine learning has been tightened up to figure out what’s happening. I don’t see that with any other product I’ve used.”

TTF also uses CrowdStrike Falcon® LogScale, a modern log management solution that delivers real-time monitoring, rapid threat-hunting capabilities, and deep insights across the company’s IT infrastructure. 

For Oddo, a self-proclaimed "data junkie," the decision to adopt Falcon LogScale was driven by his passion for extracting meaningful stories from large datasets. Oddo recognized that Falcon LogScale, which seamlessly integrates CrowdStrike data with TTF’s internal sources, offered more efficiency than Elastic, which it had previously used for data processing.

By centralizing and retaining data for up to one year, the team now gains a comprehensive, long-term view of its systems, enabling faster and more informed investigations.

“The interface is intuitive, and the search capabilities are incredibly powerful,” Oddo said. “LogScale makes it easy to analyze our data alongside CrowdStrike’s for a complete picture.”

Durst echoed this sentiment, highlighting Falcon LogScale’s user-friendly approach. “It speaks a single language, which simplifies data analysis and makes it accessible, even for those with different skill sets,” he said.

For a company like TTF, where innovation and creativity thrive, having the right cybersecurity partner is essential. CrowdStrike provides TTF with the peace of mind and efficiency it needs to continue pushing the boundaries of what’s possible.

“Until you move to CrowdStrike, you don’t know what you’re missing,” Oddo concluded.

Whether it’s Emmy-winning storytelling or cybersecurity, TTF proves that excellence begins with the right partnerships. With CrowdStrike, TTF has fortified its operations to inspire creativity while enhancing safety and reliability.