Northrop team wins cyber challenge

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MCLEAN, Va., Jan. 7 (UPI) -- Northrop Grumman engineers were named "Grand Champion" in the U.S. Department of Defense Cyber Crime Center's seventh annual Digital Forensics Challenge.

The four-person team, in addition to gaining the overall champion title, also won first place in the competition's U.S. and commercial categories.

"The competition is an excellent way for the (Defense Department) Cyber Crime Center to reach out to its commercial, academic and government partners to develop tools, methods and processes to help mitigate cyber-crime," said Mike Papay, vice president and chief information security officer, Northrop Grumman Information Systems.

"We are proud of this team, which excelled in a highly competitive environment to demonstrate that staying ahead in cyber means continually challenging your own ability. Their rich expertise and drive to innovate will ultimately help our customers better protect their networks."

The Department of Defense competition is designed to encourage the digital forensics community to pioneer new investigative tools, techniques and methodologies to address evolving cyber threats. More than 1,200 teams representing 53 countries took part in the 2012 challenge.

Members of the team from Northrop Grumman Information Systems' Cyber Intelligence division included systems engineers Ed Haymore, Hayden Metz and Myong Sung and software engineer Peter Jackowski.