Role-Based Guides

We provide detailed guides for the following roles within the Crucible ecosystem:

Infrastructure Administrator

Infrastructure Administrators keep Crucible platforms healthy, secure, and scalable. They provision environments, manage access, and monitor day-to-day operations.

Range Builder

Range Builders design and deliver complete cyber ranges. They combine infrastructure, scenarios, and learner-facing content into cohesive exercises.

Instructor

Instructors lead and execute Crucible exercises and training sessions. They guide participants, evaluate performance, and ensure learning objectives are met.

Participant

Participants engage in Crucible exercises to develop and demonstrate cyber defense skills. They interact with simulated environments and apply techniques in realistic scenarios. This role overlaps with "Player" in the Player application, and "Competitor" in the Gameboard application.

For ease of use reasons, the documentation for participants is largely covered within the applications that they are interacting with directly.

Deep Dive into CERT Research

For more background, CERT has a long history of building cyber ranges and training/exercise/challenge environments. Some of our relevant research publications include:

• Challenge Development Guidelines for Cybersecurity Competitions
• Foundation of Cyber Ranges
• R-EACTR: A Framework for Designing Realistic Cyber Warfare Exercises
• The CERT Approach to Cybersecurity Workforce Development