Preventing Direct Flag Extraction from VM Disk Images in CTFs

The post asks whether it is possible to share a VM-based challenge (such as an OVA or OVF file) involving privilege escalation without allowing players to extract the disk (e.g., using tools like 7-Zip) and directly retrieve the flag. It questions if this issue is unavoidable when distributing VM disk images. The author also considers whether challenges should instead be designed so the flag cannot be obtained through offline disk analysis.