mlsanityData to 7 Oct 2026

CTFusion: A CTF-based Benchmark for LLM Agent Evaluation

arXiv 2605.11504 ↗First posted 12 May 2026cs.LG cs.CRcited by 3

On the map: LLM agents and tool use → Agent threats, guardrails and governance

Abstract (arXiv)

Recent advances in Large Language Models (LLMs) have enabled agentic systems for complex, multi-step tasks; cybersecurity is emerging as a prominent application. To evaluate such agents, researchers widely adopt Capture The Flag (CTF) benchmarks. However, current CTF benchmarks reuse existing challenges, which exposes them to data contamination and potential cheating. Notably, we confirmed these issues in practice by integrating web search tools into an existing agent. To address these limitations, we present CTFusion, a streaming evaluation framework built on Live CTFs. To achieve this, CTFusion preserves per-agent independence under a single team account and reduces competition impact by forwarding only the first correct flag per challenge. Moreover, we implement CTFusion as a Model Context Protocol (MCP) server on the widely used CTFd platform, which offers broad applicability to diverse CTF events and agent types. Through experiments with three LLMs, two agents, and five Live CTFs, we demonstrate that existing CTF benchmarks can be unreliable in assessing LLM-based agents, while CTFusion can serve as a robust solution for evaluating cybersecurity agents. We release CTFusion as open source to foster future research in this area.

Key facts. Cited by 3 papers in the map (data through 7 Oct 2026). Placed in Agent threats, guardrails and governance, one of 16 directions in LLM agents and tool use. Builds on 12 of its 25 references that are in the map. First posted on arXiv 12 May 2026.

Builds on

12 of 25 references.

Closest ancestors · 3

Same direction, newest first

  1. 2025CRAKEN: Cybersecurity LLM Agent with Knowledge-Based Execution21 May
  2. 2025D-CIPHER: Dynamic Collaborative Intelligent Multi-Agent System with Planner and Heterogeneous Executors for Offensive Security15 Feb
  3. 2024EnIGMA: Interactive Tools Substantially Assist LM Agents in Finding Security Vulnerabilities24 Sep

Other references · 9

  1. 2021Evaluating Large Language Models Trained on Codecited by 8,053
  2. 2024Cybench: A Framework for Evaluating Cybersecurity Capabilities and Risks of Language Modelscited by 156
  3. 2024Benchmark Data Contamination of Large Language Models: A Surveycited by 138
  4. 2024NYU CTF Bench: A Scalable Open-Source Benchmark Dataset for Evaluating LLMs in Offensive Securitycited by 90
  5. 2024Large Language Models for Cyber Security: A Systematic Literature Reviewcited by 65
  6. 2024An Empirical Evaluation of LLMs for Solving Offensive Security Challengescited by 33
  7. 2025Dynamic Benchmarking of Reasoning Capabilities in Code Large Language Models Under Data Contaminationcited by 22
  8. 2025Measuring and Augmenting Large Language Models for Solving Capture-the-Flag Challengescited by 14
  9. 2025LastingBench: Defend Benchmarks Against Knowledge Leakagecited by 14

Built on by

Cited by year (2026 to 7 Oct)

Citing papers per year: 2026: 3.

3 papers.

Similar, not cited

Close in wording, no citation either way

  1. 2026CTFExplorer: Evaluating LLM Offensive Agents Through Multi-Target Web CTF Benchmarking
  2. 2025Towards Effective Offensive Security LLM Agents: Hyperparameter Tuning, LLM as a Judge, and a Lightweight CTF Benchmark
  3. 2026Capture the Flags: Family-Based Evaluation of Agentic LLMs via Semantics-Preserving Transformations
  4. 2026Autonomous LLM Agents & CTFs: A Second Look
  5. 2026Do Agents Dream of Root Shells? Partial-Credit Evaluation of LLM Agents in Capture the Flag Challenges
  6. 2026Cyber Defense Benchmark: Agentic Threat Hunting Evaluation for LLMs in SecOps
  7. 2026How Do LLM Agents Actually Get the Flag? Trace-Level Provenance for Agentic Offensive Security Evaluation
  8. 2026STRIATUM-CTF: A Protocol-Driven Agentic Framework for General-Purpose CTF Solving