Keynote: Learn by Hacking: How to Run a 2,500 Node Kubernetes CTF
summary
Run a Kubernetes CTF pipeline that provisions up to 2,500 nodes per day using an open-source breach simulator and knative scaling-to-zero driven by a pub/sub queue and re-entrancy state machine; each scenario spawns a five-node cluster with unique credentials per player and serves 80–100 concurrent participants. Documented failures include an AWS Ubuntu mirror outage that halted provisioning, EC2 region reprovisioning, an SSH tunnel sandbox bypass, and RBAC credential leakage via a bastion node, and the platform is open source with a hosted beta.
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chapters (11)
- 0:00Welcome
- 1:25Purpose of Kubernetes CTFs
- 2:53Learning experience design
- 4:18Security challenges in software
- 5:22Realistic security scenarios
- 7:14Player interaction
- 8:39Common vulnerabilities
- 9:00Scaling to 2,500 nodes
- 10:25Provisioning challenges
- 11:31Achievements and impact
- 11:54Closing and resources
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