Is Virtualization a Risk?

Virtualization in the Data Center brings more efficiency. But does this mean a compromise to IT security? How one can mitigate data center security risks? The slimmer, older version of this question’s answer can be the article on Risks of Server Virtualization. Amazon, Ebay, Sony – so many company’s name for IT security will appear in the mind as well. Because all the companies known for their highly virtualized IT environments and serious safety margins.So, short answer to the question; Is Virtualization a Risk? is yes. Longer answer is, this article! Because, it is not that easy to answer.

Is Virtualization a Risk : Yes, Understand How it Can Happen

At Amazon, there was one unpatched operating system on a Windows host, reported to be hacked on a virtual machine from there to steal cryptographic keys from the other machines. Of course, only certain virtual environments can allow such. One must also rethink: The proven security model for physical machines is no longer valid. That might be a reason for that security concerns against highly virtualized infrastructures are so common today. With the hypervisor, there are at least a completely new instance of the overall system and so on the hardware, pushing more and more virtual machines also push a button. In addition, there are virtualized storage and network resources.

Is Virtualization a Risk : Check Applications and Operating Systems

The security of virtualized environments must be thought upfront before implementation. If a company manages their old environment is not good, in the virtualized environment it is also no better. So it is advisable to standardize server at the starting of an operating system and to replace applications that can hardly or not be patched as needed or not maintainable. Routines such as patching should be largely automated even in the old environment. After all, most attacks are still on the individual applications and their vulnerability – whether it is a a virtual environment or not.

Classify Applications According to the Security Requirements

Next, the existing applications should be classified according to their security needs. Many experts recommend applications that belong to the very different security classes, not to keep on the same host or server pool. The slope of the security officers, as before is to move to a separate host process, significantly reducing the consolidation opportunities. It could be with the existing solutions today when the concerns quite reach the necessary security concern.

Is Virtualization a Risk? Conclusion

As like using a computer has some risks, running a server has the exact risks plus some extra because of the open ports; in the same way, take that the ‘server’ we said in the middle of this sentence is of old environment, when it is Virtualized, some additional issues are added over the conventional. But, the risks basically can be decreased to lowest level just like us, those who are very careful computer users.