Federated Cybersecurity Testbed as a Service (FCTaaS): A framework to federate cybersecurity testbeds
2026-07-11 • Cryptography and Security
Cryptography and SecurityNetworking and Internet Architecture
AI summaryⓘ
The authors present FCTaaS, a system that links different cybersecurity testbeds across locations so researchers can run experiments together remotely. This helps overcome the problem of individual testbeds becoming outdated or underused. They tested FCTaaS with scenarios like cyberattacks on smart systems and intrusion detection, showing it works well with low delays and minimal added network load. Their work makes it easier to study cybersecurity in complex, distributed systems without needing expensive upgrades or limited access.
cybersecurity testbedfederated systemsvirtual private network (VPN)denial-of-service attackintrusion detection system (IDS)suricatalatencynetwork utilizationsmart infrastructureresource overhead
Authors
Josh Dean, Yu-Zheng Lin, John Paul Martin Encinas, Ibrahim Almazyad, Qinxuan Shi, Zhanglong Yang, Shalaka Satam, Tingjun Lei, Jielun Zhang, Sicong Shao, Salim Hariri, Pratik Satam
Abstract
Rapid technological change is reshaping society through emerging domains such as autonomous vehicles and smart manufacturing, creating new research challenges in system design, operation, security, and training. Researchers often rely on testbeds to reproduce experimental scenarios, collect and analyze data, observe system behavior, and evaluate proposed solutions. However, the fast pace of innovation makes it difficult and costly for individual testbeds to remain representative of state-of-the-art systems, as doing so requires frequent upgrades and new capabilities. Moreover, access to specialized testbeds is often limited to a small group of researchers, leaving valuable infrastructure underutilized during its operational lifetime. This paper presents FCTaaS, a Federated Cybersecurity Testbed as a Service framework that enables heterogeneous cybersecurity testbeds to participate in a single experiment across geographical boundaries. By connecting independently managed testbeds through a Virtual Private Network (VPN), FCTaaS supports remote testbed discovery, experiment design, and coordinated experimentation. We evaluate FCTaaS across three case studies involving denial-of-service scenarios on smart infrastructure and intrusion detection and prevention workflows using a Suricata-based IDS/IPS testbed. The results show that FCTaaS enables effective cross-testbed experimentation while preserving visibility into attack traffic, IDS alerts, and detection-system resource stress. Even under resource-intensive attack scenarios, FCTaaS achieves limiting network utilization of 49%, introduces only 1% overhead, and supports latency ranging from 5.63 ms between local nodes to 147 ms between geographically dispersed nodes.