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LITTLE SILVER If it was a sports team, the Red Bank Regional CyberPatriots would have paraded through town amid endless media attention. While not a traditional sport, there is a scoreboard for the six-person team that competes in the world of cybersecurity. And the numbers dont lie.

Competing in three stages in an international competition that is organized by the U.S. Air Force, RBRs top team, dubbed The Swashbucklers, finished as the state champion in New Jersey and 32nd out of over 6,200 teams from North America.

Three stages throughout the school year gave the team a real-world set of problems to solve in a six-hour window. The Bucs team looks for vulnerabilities within machines using four operating systems, Windows, Windows Server 2019, Ubuntu and Debian, and answers forensic questions.

CyberPatriot is a great opportunity because it encourages us to consult guidelines and recommendations actual security experts use, junior Connor Costic said. We read countless hours of documentation from the Center of Internet Security as well as the Department of Defenses Security Technical Implementation Guides (STIGs).

Red Bank Regional has been at the forefront of cybersecurity, winning the first open CyberPatriots national championship in 2011 with 678 teams competing. In 2017, RBR placed second in the nation against 4,404 teams. With four juniors and two sophomores, the entire Swashbucklers team is back next year, determined to qualify for the Top 12 national finals in the nations capital.

Our goal for next year is to make it to nationals, junior Luke Chrampanis said. We all definitely share the desire and that is apparent in our commitment. What works in our favor is that we experienced all the rounds up to nationals this year and were better for it.

Like on any team, everyone on the RBR roster has their role to play in getting the assignments done in the quickest time possible with the fewest mistakes. Costic handles Windows Server 2019 while Chrampanis looks after Windows 10. Sean OMara and Dennis Dayan monitor Ubuntu. Matthew Schmitt covers Debian and Cole Zucosky rounds things out with Cisco networking. The Swashbucklers work well together and put in the extra time that pays off with great results when its time to compete. Led by teacher and coach Jeremy Milonas, the team has gone above and beyond a weekly meeting.

Were a very dedicated team. Every weekend we meet for 3-4 hours doing lots of research and creating new strategies, Costic said. It doesnt just end there. At home and in school we take it a step further and try to automate the process and free up time to work on more difficult challenges.

The global cybersecurity market is currently worth $173 billion and is forecasted to reach $270 billion by 2026 according to the Australian Cyber Security Growth Network.

I feel this experience is so important because each of us will begin with a strong head start in the cybersecurity field, Chrampanis said.

Business leaders of any size know the importance of cybersecurity and Red Bank Regional is producing elite talent in this rapidly expanding field.

This article originally appeared in the April 9th, 2020 print edition of The Two River Times.

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RBR's CyberPatriots Continue their Winning Ways - The Two River Times