Evidence of Cognitive Biases in Capture-the-Flag Cybersecurity Competitions
Fuente:
arXiv
Salvato in:
| Autori principali: | , , , , , |
|---|---|
| Natura: | Preprint |
| Pubblicazione: |
2025
|
| Soggetti: | |
| Accesso online: | |
| Tags: |
Aggiungi Tag
Nessun Tag, puoi essere il primo ad aggiungerne!!
|
| _version_ | 1866918155641683968 |
|---|---|
| author | Carreira, Carolina Aggarwal, Anu Cuevas, Alejandro Ferreira, Maria José Hibshi, Hanan Gonzalez, Cleotilde |
| author_facet | Carreira, Carolina Aggarwal, Anu Cuevas, Alejandro Ferreira, Maria José Hibshi, Hanan Gonzalez, Cleotilde |
| contents | Understanding how cognitive biases influence adversarial decision-making is essential for developing effective cyber defenses. Capture-the-Flag (CTF) competitions provide an ecologically valid testbed to study attacker behavior at scale, simulating real-world intrusion scenarios under pressure. We analyze over 500,000 submission logs from picoCTF, a large educational CTF platform, to identify behavioral signatures of cognitive biases with defensive implications. Focusing on availability bias and the sunk cost fallacy, we employ a mixed-methods approach combining qualitative coding, descriptive statistics, and generalized linear modeling. Our findings show that participants often submitted flags with correct content but incorrect formatting (availability bias), and persisted in attempting challenges despite repeated failures and declining success probabilities (sunk cost fallacy). These patterns reveal that biases naturally shape attacker behavior in adversarial contexts. Building on these insights, we outline a framework for bias-informed adaptive defenses that anticipate, rather than simply react to, adversarial actions. |
| format | Preprint |
| id |
arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2510_05771 |
| institution | arXiv |
| publishDate | 2025 |
| record_format | arxiv |
| spellingShingle | Evidence of Cognitive Biases in Capture-the-Flag Cybersecurity Competitions Carreira, Carolina Aggarwal, Anu Cuevas, Alejandro Ferreira, Maria José Hibshi, Hanan Gonzalez, Cleotilde Cryptography and Security Computers and Society Human-Computer Interaction Understanding how cognitive biases influence adversarial decision-making is essential for developing effective cyber defenses. Capture-the-Flag (CTF) competitions provide an ecologically valid testbed to study attacker behavior at scale, simulating real-world intrusion scenarios under pressure. We analyze over 500,000 submission logs from picoCTF, a large educational CTF platform, to identify behavioral signatures of cognitive biases with defensive implications. Focusing on availability bias and the sunk cost fallacy, we employ a mixed-methods approach combining qualitative coding, descriptive statistics, and generalized linear modeling. Our findings show that participants often submitted flags with correct content but incorrect formatting (availability bias), and persisted in attempting challenges despite repeated failures and declining success probabilities (sunk cost fallacy). These patterns reveal that biases naturally shape attacker behavior in adversarial contexts. Building on these insights, we outline a framework for bias-informed adaptive defenses that anticipate, rather than simply react to, adversarial actions. |
| title | Evidence of Cognitive Biases in Capture-the-Flag Cybersecurity Competitions |
| topic | Cryptography and Security Computers and Society Human-Computer Interaction |
| url | https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.05771 |