HIKARI – Real Challenges, Hidden Threats: A Gamified Threat Hunting Platform

• Sidnei Barbieri ITA
• Bruno Moreira Camargos Belo ITA
• Leonardo Chahud ITA
• Leonardo Vaz de Meneses ITA
• Cesar Marcondes ITA
• Lourenço Alves Pereira Júnior ITA

DOI: https://doi.org/10.5753/sbseg.2025.11500

Abstract

HIKARI is a training platform for Blue Teams operating in realistic environments, integrating progressive Capture The Flag (CTF) challenges with the ingestion and analysis of real security events through an ELK stack (Elasticsearch, Logstash e Kibana). The platform employs a Kafka bus for controlled event injection, CTFd for gamified challenge management, and Kibana as an investigation interface. This paper describes the system architecture, analyzes its differentiators compared to existing solutions, and presents experimental results from three educational deployments involving over 40 participants. The results suggest that HIKARI advances the state of the art and fosters practical skill development in cybersecurity defense operations.

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