Air Force Association Crowns CyberPatriot VII National Champions

NATIONAL HARBOR, Md., March 17, 2015 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The Air Force Association's CyberPatriot Program announced today the winners of the CyberPatriot VII National Youth Cyber Defense Competition.   Among the three divisions of the competition, Grissom High School from Huntsville, Alabama, won the national championship in the Open Division; Montachusett Regional Vocational Technical School from Fitchburg, Massachusetts; won the All-Service Division, and Nysmith School for the Gifted of Herndon, Virginia; won the Middle School Division. 

"CyberPatriot VII was nothing short of an astounding success and we could not be more proud of every Competitor that participated this year," said Bernie Skoch, CyberPatriot National Commissioner.  "The excitement from this year's National Finals Competition was palpable and it is evident that our program is positively impacting thousands of students. We look forward to making CyberPatriot VIII even more educational, challenging and most importantly, fun!"

The full list of winning teams for CyberPatriot VII is as follows:

Open Division
National Champions: Team CyberSloths of Grissom High School, Huntsville, Ala.
Runner-Up: Team Azure of North Hollywood High School, North Hollywood, Calif.
Third Place: Team Sudo of Summit Technology Academy, Lee's Summit, Mo.

All-Service Division
National Champions: Team Marine Raiders of Montachusett Regional Technical School, Fitchburg, Mass.
Runner-Up: T34m B1g S10ux of Big Sioux Composite Squadron, Brookings, S.D.
Third Place: Team Left Coast of Fort Fisher Division, San Diego, Calif.

Middle School:
National Champions: Team 1 of Nysmith School for the Gifted, Herndon, Va.
Runner-Up: Team Food Fighters of Markham Place School, Little Silver, N.J.
Third Place: Team Flaming Octopuses, Markham Place School, Little Silver, N.J.

Digital Crime Scene Challenge:
Open Division: Team Azure, North Hollywood High School, North Hollywood, Calif.
All Service Division: Team CyberBears, Winter Springs High School, Winter Springs, Fla.
Middle School Division: Team Food Fighters, Markham Place School, Little Silver, N.J.

Leidos Digital Forensics Challenge:
Open Division: Team CyberSloths, Grissom High School, Huntsville, Ala.
All Service Division: W.B. Ray High School, Corpus Christi, Tex.

Cisco Networking Challenge:
Open Division: Team Sudo, Summit Technology Academy, Lee's Summit, Mo.
All Service Division: Team Left Coast, Fort Fisher Division, San Diego, Calif.

The top winners of each division were announced during the CyberPatriot VII Awards Banquet, the culminating event of the program's National Finals Competition, held March 11-15 at the Gaylord National Hotel and Convention Center in National Harbor, Maryland. Competitors from the two high school divisions will collectively receive $48,000 in scholarships from Northrop Grumman Information Systems. The Northrop Grumman Foundation is CyberPatriot's Presenting Sponsor and recently renewed its commitment to extend their support to the program through 2019.  Students on high school winning teams will also receive a collective $55,000 from the National Security Agency.

"Congratulations to all the winners who have demonstrated exceptional teamwork, leadership, and technical skills to be recognized as this year's national champions," said Diane Miller, director, CyberPatriot programs, Northrop Grumman.  "We salute all the finalists whose hard work and dedication qualified them to be among the top one percent of the season's 2,175 registered teams.  CyberPatriot is truly addressing a national imperative and we are proud to see our youth inspired to become tomorrow's cyber defenders."

CyberPatriot VII began in October 2014 with teams from all 50 states, Canada, and DoD dependent schools in Europe and the Pacific. After two months of rigorous online challenges, the Open Division and All Service Division teams were divided into three tiers: Platinum, Gold and Silver. The teams continued to compete within their tiers for State Awards and advancement to the Regional/Category Round, but only teams in the Platinum tier, the top tier, were eligible to advance to National Finals Competition from the Regional/Category Round earlier this month.  The full list of National Finalist teams can be found here.

In addition to the Northrop Grumman Foundation, CyberPatriot sponsors include Cyber Diamond Sponsors AT&T Federal and the AT&T Foundation, Cisco, Microsoft, USA Today Education, the US Department of Homeland Security, and the Office of the Secretary of Defense; Cyber Gold Sponsors Facebook, Riverside Research, URS, Splunk, and Symantec; and Cyber Silver Sponsors the Air Force Reserve, Embry-Riddle University, Leidos, MIT Lincoln Laboratory, and University of Maryland University College.

Photo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20150317/182551

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SOURCE Air Force Association

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