Creating a Framework for Platform-Independent Cyber Range Scenarios
Christoph Steininger · 2025
Cybersecurity faces a critical skills gap despite a growing workforce. Cyber Ranges have emerged as essential tools for addressing this gap, offering professional training by simulating real-world cyberattacks and defensive strategies. However, the creation and management of such Cyber Range scenarios are often resource-intensive, time-consuming, and hindered by heterogeneous and non-standardized software solutions. This research description paper proposes a framework for the development of platform-independent Cyber Range scenarios. The framework addresses four key challenges: standardizing scenario components, formalizing scenario design, creating actionable scenario documentation, and integrating scenario progress and evaluation mechanisms. By leveraging standardized technologies for platform-agnostic infrastructure definitions and formalized models to depict offensive and defensive tactics, this research aims to enhance interoperability, automation, and maintainability, thus advancing Cyber Range capabilities and tackling the cybersecurity skills gap.