THE CYBER INTERVIEW
The vast expanse of blue above us was once thought to be the abode of the Gods. Today however, we have bested the sky. Yet, air travel remains a feat of engineering that requires millions of components to all work together to enable safe transit.
And as it often does, technology shoulders most of the heavy lifting.“ If you think about it, your whole travel journey is dependent on technology and the connected ecosystem that we work in,” Deneen Defiore, Vice President & Chief Information Security Officer at United Airlines, rightly points out.
“ It’ s not just United, it’ s the hundreds, even thousands of companies that we interact with, to get a plane moved from point A to point B safely.”
Deneen sits at the apex of her field, with more than 25 years of invaluable experience securing the cyber-physical systems that the world relies on. She is also a part of The White House National Infrastructure Advisory Council and advises the government on securing critical infrastructure.
As CISO of one of the biggest airlines in the world, Deneen has clearly picked a difficult job – and when asked why, she jests:“ Because I’ m a glutton for punishment,” before giving her real answer.“ I ' ve always been intrigued and amazed by critical infrastructure and the way aviation has an impact on the world.”
For her, it’ s not simply about the miracle of transport, the ease of getting on a plane to go on vacation or travel,
“ We cannot tolerate downtime. We don ' t take big planned outages because we’ re running 24 / 7 operations”
Deneen DeFiore Vice President & Chief Information Security Officer United Airlines
but the bigger picture that brings her solace – the economic impact aviation has and how it brings the world together.
“ Connecting my work to that mission makes it so meaningful,” Deneen says,“ That’ s the motivation for me that keeps me going through the crises and the craziness of the world that we live in.”
The evolution of security in aviation In her long and fruitful career, Deneen thinks there has been a real shift in what cybersecurity means for the industry.
“ Cybersecurity in aviation has evolved from protecting systems, networks and data, to really protecting operational resilience and trust,” the CISO reflects.
“ It’ s not just about whether we can prevent things from happening, it’ s also about whether we can detect anomalies, detect disruptions, then recover quickly and keep the airline moving safely, if something is disrupted – via technology outage, a cyber incident or whatever it is.”
26 August 2026