United Airlines deploys defensive AI as Starlink rollout nears 2027 finish
United's chief information security officer says the airline is using defensive AI as Starlink Wi-Fi reaches its fleet by end-2027.
United Airlines is deploying defensive artificial intelligence and operationalising cybersecurity as it rolls out in-flight Wi-Fi across its fleet by the end of 2027. Deneen DeFiore, the airline's vice president and chief information security officer, spoke at the 10th annual CyberSat conference in Reston, Virginia.
DeFiore described a "vulnerability apocalypse" in commercial aviation and space, where AI-enabled threat actors are finding and exploiting weaknesses in critical systems faster than most organisations can respond. "The bottleneck is quickly becoming the ability to remediate and protect those systems," she said.
United has started to deploy AI "from a defensive perspective", DeFiore said. On the enterprise side, it is using frontier models to scan its code base. It is also looking at "continuous red-teaming capabilities" to keep its digital properties secure.
The Starlink in-flight connectivity rollout was originally scheduled to take two to three years. DeFiore said the timeline has been cut to 18 months.
Sourcesatellitetoday.com