# Analyzing the Usefulness of the DARPA OpTC Dataset in Cyber Threat Detection Research

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2103.03080 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2103.03080/

## Key facts

- Cited by 7 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- First posted on arXiv 4 Mar 2021.

## Built on by (most cited first, 7 of 7)

- [OCR-APT: Reconstructing APT Stories from Audit Logs using Subgraph Anomaly Detection and LLMs](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2510.15188/) (2025)
- [ANUBIS: A Provenance Graph-Based Framework for Advanced Persistent Threat Detection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2112.11032/) (2021)
- [Deep Learning-based Intrusion Detection Systems: A Survey](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2504.07839/) (2025)
- [Neuro-Symbolic AI for Cybersecurity: State of the Art, Challenges, and Opportunities](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2509.06921/) (2025)
- [End-To-End Anomaly Detection for Identifying Malicious Cyber Behavior through NLP-Based Log Embeddings](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2108.12276/) (2021)
- [On the Elements of Datasets for Cyber Physical Systems Security](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2208.08255/) (2022)
- [Multi-Source Cybersecurity Logs: An ATT&CK-Labeled Dataset and SLM Evaluation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2606.18190/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Maintaining security and privacy in real-world enterprise networks is becoming more and more challenging. Cyber actors are increasingly employing previously unreported and state-of-the-art techniques to break into corporate networks. To develop novel and effective methods to thwart these sophisticated cyberattacks, we need datasets that reflect real-world enterprise scenarios to a high degree of accuracy. However, precious few such datasets are publicly available. Researchers still predominantly use the decade-old KDD datasets, however, studies showed that these datasets do not adequately reflect modern attacks like Advanced Persistent Threats(APT). In this work, we analyze the usefulness of the recently introduced DARPA Operationally Transparent Cyber (OpTC) dataset in this regard. We describe the content of the dataset in detail and present a qualitative analysis. We show that the OpTC dataset is an excellent candidate for advanced cyber threat detection research while also highlighting its limitations. Additionally, we propose several research directions where this dataset can be useful.