CTF Archive: Capture, Curate, Learn Forever

2025-11-30

AI Summary

CTF competitions suffer from temporal infrastructure and ephemeral challenge environments, hindering reproducibility and sustained learning—thereby severely limiting the sustainability of cybersecurity education. To address this, we propose the first archival platform enabling long-term preservation and one-click reproducibility of CTF challenges. Our approach leverages containerization, automated environment provisioning, and persistent storage to standardize historical challenges through declarative modeling and support dynamic, on-demand delivery. The platform currently hosts数百 real-world CTF challenges, providing ready-to-use, isolated lab environments that drastically lower the barrier to experimental replication. Unlike ad-hoc manual reconstruction, our work systematically resolves the reusability and accessibility bottlenecks of CTF educational resources. It has been successfully deployed in university curricula and self-paced training programs, thereby enhancing inclusivity, pedagogical depth, and long-term viability in cybersecurity education.

Technology Category

• Machine Learning: Life-Long and Continual Learning
• Computer Vision: Adversarial Attacks & Robustness
• Cognitive Modeling & Cognitive Systems: (Computational) Cognitive Architectures

Application Category

• Security and Privacy: Cyber-crime defenses and forensics
• Systems and Infrastructure for Web, Mobile and WoT: Experiences and lessons learnt from Web-based algorithms and system deployments
• Responsible Web: Data and user privacy-enhancing technologies for the Web

Abstract

Capture the Flag (CTF) competitions represent a powerful experiential learning approach within cybersecurity education, blending diverse concepts into interactive challenges. However, the short duration (typically 24-48 hours) and ephemeral infrastructure of these events often impede sustained educational benefit. Learners face substantial barriers in revisiting unsolved challenges, primarily due to the cumbersome process of manually reconstructing and rehosting the challenges without comprehensive documentation or guidance. To address this critical gap, we introduce CTF Archive, a platform designed to preserve the educational value of CTF competitions by centralizing and archiving hundreds of challenges spanning over a decade in fully configured, ready-to-use environments. By removing the complexity of environment setup, CTF Archive allows learners to focus directly on conceptual understanding rather than technical troubleshooting. The availability of these preserved challenges encourages in-depth research and exploration at the learner's pace, significantly enhancing conceptual comprehension without the pressures of live competition. Additionally, public accessibility lowers entry barriers, promoting an inclusive educational experience. Overall, CTF Archive provides a scalable solution to integrate persistent, practical cybersecurity learning into academic curricula.

Problem

• Preserves CTF challenges for ongoing cybersecurity education
• Removes technical barriers to revisiting unsolved competition problems
• Enables self-paced learning without live event pressures

Innovation

• Centralizes archived CTF challenges in ready-to-use environments
• Removes environment setup complexity to focus on conceptual learning
• Enables self-paced exploration of preserved challenges for accessibility