Virtualization Security

Virtualization is marching forward at impressive speeds. However, securing virtual environments poses new challenges.

There is almost no organization that is not involved with virtualization. And that’s no surprise: Using virtualization, organizations can save a lot of money on hardware, plus it offers a host of flexibility possibilities. Increased use of virtual environments is also increasing the pressure for adequate security of these environments. The impact of traditional virus scanners on the performance of a virtual machine is too great, which is why alternatives must be sought in these types of environments.

The alternatives are specially developed for the scenario of several virtual machines simultaneously using the same hardware. On the one hand, this means that there is vested interest in not executing high-load tasks at the same time; on the other hand, the principle offers the option of carrying out tasks centrally. Antivirus systems that are aimed at the virtual environment therefore work with one central scan server. The virtual machines themselves are therefore no longer equipped with scanning software but send signals to the central scan server for scanning a file. This results in much less stress on the virtual machine, among other things due to the lack of definitions.

Overall, using the correct tools can make the virtual environment more efficient and result in cost savings because less hardware is required to operate all the necessary virtual machines.