Last year, Gartner, Inc. estimated that 60% of virtual machines would be less secure than their physical counterparts through 2009. Was your virtual infrastructure part of the statistic, or were you on top of the virtual security game? Use these resources as a guide to hardening your virtual infrastructure against security attacks and you should be in good shape through 2010.
Stealing a virtual machine and its data in 3 easy steps
By Eric Siebert for SearchVMware.com
Stealing a physical server out of a data center is very difficult and is sure to be noticed, stealing a virtual machine, however, can be done from anywhere on your network.
What happens when a virtual machine gets hacked?
By Ed Skoudis for SearchSecurity.com
What are the risks associated with a virtual machine itself and the application(s) that runs on top of the OS? What are the implications if the VM is hacked? Does the hacker then own all the VM hosts?
VMware's security center
By VMware, Inc.
VMware's own resources for staying up-to-date with VMware security issues.
VMware Communities: Security and vShield zones
By VMware, Inc.
Security advisories and alerts, links to related certifications, security centers and compliance centers, documents and a message board where you can chat with other VMware admins about security and share scripts or other resources.
How to integrate the security of both physical and virtual machines
By Michael Cobb for SearchSecurity.com
Managing and integrating the security of both physical and virtual machines -- both online and offline -- is certainly a challenge, and as of yet, there's no clear "best practice" approach.
Using TCP Wrappers, PAMs and iptables for VMware ESX defense in depth security
By Edward Haletky for SearchVMware.com
Learn how to use TCP Wrappers, iptables and a specific pluggable authentication modules (PAMs) to control and restrict access to VMware ESX host virtual machines.
More VMware security resources
By Edward Haletky for the Virtualization Pro blog
Keeping track of security issues associated with virtualization requires a serious investment in time. To aid in that, Edward Haletky maintains a list of the top virtualization security links that continues to grow over time.
Understanding VMware ESX security zones
By Edward Haletky for the Virtualization Pro blog
There is some confusion around VMware ESX with regards to security zones. On one hand VMware ESX is a single multi-homed physical machine. On the other hand, it contains multiple security zones. We need to look within the physical to properly understand security zones within VMware ESX and ESXi.
Preventing VMware virtual machine errors and security breaches
By Edward Haletky for SearchVMware.com
Just because you've secured your operating systems running on a VMware ESX or VMware ESXi hypervisor doesn't mean you've secured the VMs against all errors and vulnerabilities. VMware administrators also need to consider the more abstract virtualization "layer" where a virtual machine and a hypervisor interact.
Top 5 virtualization server security best practices
By Thomas Ptacek for Information Security magazine
Virtualization is a win for enterprise security. Patching, staging, deployment and change management -- chronic headaches for IT security -- get easier in virtualized data centers. The bad news is, before virtualization solves those problems for us, we've got challenges to overcome. In no particular order, here are five dos and don'ts for avoiding virtualization pitfalls.
Preventing VMware ESX or ESXi network security breaches in DMZs
By Edward Haletky for SearchVMware.com
When you place a VMware ESX or ESXi host virtual machine into a demilitarized zone (DMZ), you need to pay special attention to networking problems. VMware networks include the VMotion and Storage VMotion network, the virtual machine network, the storage network and the networking necessary to operate the service console. If not properly managed, these networks can bypass existing security measures that would normally prevent external communication to within the DMZ.
VMware ESXi security review: Firewall, please
By Edward Haletky for the Virtualization Pro blog
VMware ESXi may have a smaller footprint than VMware ESX, but the pro-security theory behind the skinny ESX version may be defunct given the lack of ability to create a Defense in Depth strategy around the hypervisor. As is, I suggest you consider ESXi a safe hypervisor only when behind a firewall.
Assessing VMware ESX server security with TripWire ConfigCheck
By David Davis for SearchVMware.com
There are many best practices for manually enhancing security for VMware ESX machines, but since they're manual adjustments they can be overlooked. Even if an administrator has built an ESX machine from the ground up, the machine could still fail as many as 45 of 77 ConfigCheck security tests. TripWire ConfigCheck is a free application that helps identify security vulnerabilities and will supply instructions for remediating any security vulnerabilities based on VMware's hardening guidelines for ESX virtual machines.
VMware vShield Zones: What it is and how it works
By Eric Siebert for SearchVMware.com
With the release of vSphere 4.0, VMware added a new security feature called vShield Zones -- a virtual firewall designed to protect VMs and analyze virtual network traffic. Find out how it works in the first installment of this three-part series.
Installing and configuring vShield Zones
By Eric Siebert for SearchVMware.com
VMware released vShield Zones in response to growing virtual machine (VM) security concerns with vSphere 4.0. In this tip, learn how to install and configure vShield Zones to better secure your VMware virtual environment.
Quick tips for managing vShield Zones
By Eric Siebert for SearchVMware.com
While vShield Zones provides an added layer of security to VMware environments, it can be difficult to work with. The pointers in this tip will help even seasoned virtualization administrators deploy vShield Zones with fewer hang-ups.
SSH in vSphere 4i
By Michael Khanin for IT Knowledge Exchange
Learn how to enable SSH in the vSphere's version of ESXi; simply follow these four steps.
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Hannah Drake is the editor of SearchVMware.com, which she helped launch in 2007 while working on sister site SearchServerVirtualization.com. She has assigned and edited technical tips about virtualization and VMware since 2006. She spends her free time volunteering for animal rescue organizations, going hiking with her rescue pup Benji, staying active, reading novels and watching her favorite TV shows, currently Dexter and Grey's Anatomy. You can reach her at hdrake@techtarget.com.
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