OREANDA-NEWS. April 15, 2016. Northrop Grumman Corporation (NYSE:NOC) awarded \\$50,500 in scholarships last night to high school students on the winning teams of the CyberPatriot VIII National Finals Competition.

Photos accompanying this release are available at: http://media.globenewswire.com/noc/mediagallery.html?pkgid=39848

Winners were announced during the CyberPatriot VIII Awards Banquet April 13 at the Hyatt Regency, Baltimore Inner Harbor, Baltimore, following a daylong competition April 12. The Northrop Grumman Foundation is the presenting sponsor of CyberPatriot, the National Youth Cyber Education program created by the Air Force Association (AFA). A full list of winning teams from the cyber defense competition is as follows:

Open Division

National Champions: Team Sudo, Summit Technology Academy, Lee's Summit, Missouri

Runners-Up: Team Bruin.777, Cherry Creek High School, Greenwood Village, Colorado

Third Place: Team Falcons, Poolesville High School, Poolesville, Maryland

All-Service Division

National Champions: Team Netrunners, Centurion Battalion, Winter Park, Florida (U.S. Naval Sea Cadet Corps)

Runners-Up: Team Cyber Warriors 1, Troy High School, Fullerton, California (Navy JROTC)

Third Place: Team Wolfpack, Colorado Springs Cadet Squadron, Colorado Springs, Colorado (Civil Air Patrol)

Middle School:

National Champions: Team CyberFalcon Millennium 360, Oak Valley Middle School, San Diego, California

Runners-Up: Team BSOD, Pleasant Lea Middle School, Lee's Summit, Missouri

Third Place: Team Crimson, Robert F. Kennedy Community School, Los Angeles, California

Each first place winner was awarded \\$2,000, second place winners were awarded \\$1,500 and third place winners were awarded \\$1,000. This is the sixth year Northrop Grumman has provided scholarship funds, committing more than \\$300,000 in total scholarship funds over this period.

"We are so proud of these students' accomplishments and are even more thrilled to be helping them continue their education goals," said Linnie Haynesworth, vice president, cyber and intelligence mission solutions division, Northrop Grumman Missions Systems, who presented the scholarship check on behalf of the corporation. "We wish them much success and look forward to the positive impact they will make in addressing our global security challenges of the future."

This year's CyberPatriot VIII National Finals Competition featured 28 high school and middle school teams, representing the top .8 percent nationwide, who competed to defend virtual networks and mobile devices from a professional aggressor team. The competition drew a record 3,379 teams, a 55 percent increase over last year. The competition opened on April 11 with welcome remarks from Northrop Grumman CyberPatriot program director, Diane Miller; a careers event for competitors; and the all-day competition on the 12th, which featured the network defense competition, as well as the Cisco Networking Challenge, the Leidos Digital Forensics Challenge, and the Facebook challenge.

In its sixth year as presenting sponsor, the Northrop Grumman Foundation and Northrop Grumman Corporation continue to devote time, talent and resources to support this critical STEM initiative. CyberPatriot is part of our commitment to expand and enhance the pipeline of diverse, talented STEM students globally. For more, go to http://www.northropgrumman.com/CorporateResponsibility/Pages/CyberPatriot.aspx

CyberPatriot is one of three global competitions being hosted this month by the corporation and the foundation. On April 18 and 19, the company will host CyberArabia in Saudi Arabia and on April 26, the company, in partnership with Cyber Security Challenge U.K., will host the CyberCenturion cyber defense competition in the U.K.

Northrop Grumman is a leading global security company providing innovative systems, products and solutions in autonomous systems, cyber, C4ISR, strike, and logistics and modernization to government and commercial customers worldwide. Please visit www.northropgrumman.com for more information.