All virtualization platforms are not the same. As you move to adopt virtual infrastructure solutions to reduce costs and improve IT operations, make sure you understand the security implications of virtualization technology and the platform you choose. VMware offers the most robust and secure virtualization platform available. Let us help you:
- Separate fact from fiction when it comes to virtualization and IT security
- Understand the most significant ways in which virtualization affects security
- Find resources as well as the latest news on virtualization security
Free Virtualization Security and Compliance Utilities
VMware has a diverse set of technology partners that provide tools to help you secure your virtual infrastructure and assure compliance with security standards. The following is a list of free, fully-functional utilities provided by partners that you can download and start using immediately in your VMware environment.
Altor Virtual Network Security Analyzer
Altor Networks’ Virtual Network Security Analyzer (VNSA) delivers real-time visibility, troubleshooting and analysis of ongoing virtual network activity. Unlike physical network security and monitoring solutions that detect only activity on physical networks, Altor’s VNSA detects and analyzes virtual network traffic to troubleshoot problems, baseline network activity, audit for inappropriate protocols, and surface anomalies. With the Virtual Network Security Analyzer, data center administrators can keep their virtual networks running smoothly, gain insight into virtual network activity, develop and apply compliance-related security policies.
Catbird Compliance Enforcer
The Catbird Compliance Enforcer instantly validates and enforces the security and compliance of virtual data centers. Unlike passive auditing tools, the Catbird Compliance Enforcer’s automated VM quarantine technology brings a level of protection to VMware commensurate with industry regulations and critical to passing traditional audits. The service can be configured to validate and enforce compensating controls for standards such as HIPAA, FISMA, GLBA, SOX and others.
Configuresoft Compliance Checker
Compliance Checker from Configuresoft checks the configurations of up to 5 VMware ESX servers to verify that they are following VMware Infrastructure 3 Hardening Guidelines and Center for Internet Security (CIS) benchmarks for VMware ESX server.
HyTrust Appliance, Community Edition
The HyTrust Appliance offers IT managers and administrators of virtual infrastructure a centralized, single point of control and visibility for hypervisor configuration, compliance, and access management. Monitor and configure hosts according to industry standard benchmarks, regulate administrators to enforce separation of duties, and generate granular audit-quality logs for all user activity. The HyTrust Appliance, Community Edition provides free protection and control for up to three VMware ESX hosts.
Lancope StealthWatch FlowSensor VE
StealthWatch FlowSensor™ VE is a complimentary virtual appliance that provides anomaly detection and network performance monitoring for virtual environments. The StealthWatch FlowSensor VE extends Lancope’s physical network visibility into virtual environments by analyzing virtual network traffic within and across virtual servers to detect and address:
- Security policy violations (unauthorized VM access, out of profile service/port usage)
- Malicious and suspicious activities (worm, DoS attacks, traffic patterns indicative of data leakage)
- Misconfigured firewalls
- Virtual network performance issues and inefficiencies in resource allocation
In short, the StealthWatch Flow Sensor VE enables you to quickly lock down security threats and ensure high network availability within your virtual environment.
SolarWinds VM Monitor
SolarWinds VM Monitor is an ingenious desktop tool that continuously monitors a VMware® ESX Server and its virtual machines, delivering the real-time virtualization monitoring that you’ve been missing. With VM Monitor at your fingertips, you’ll be able to track virtualization health at-a-glance and ensure your mission-critical apps never fail you. Go ahead, declare victory in the virtualization game and impress your boss and your fellow IT administrators with your newfound X-ray vision into ESX Servers!
Solera V2P Tap
The Solera V2P Tap enable organizations to utilize existing physical environment security and analysis tools including, IDS/IPS, anti virus, DLP, or any other standard security tools to analyze network traffic between virtual machines on a single host. While originating from the virtual infrastructure, traffic that is regenerated to these security systems appears as any other network traffic and can therefore be analyzed using the same procedures and tools already in place. The virtual tap eliminates the need to purchase virtualized versions of security tools you may already have in your physical environment.
Splunk for VMware
Splunk correlates data across tiers in the virtual stack—both inside and outside the VM to give you the complete picture. Now you can index all your IT data across every tier - the physical servers, hypervisor, VMs, and deployed applications, capturing and persisting 100% of your data in real-time. Powerful search and navigation lets you trace performance problems and errors across components. Visibility across VMs highlights resource competition issues. Flexible alerting and reporting give you continuous visibility and monitoring of changing virtual environments. Whether you're testing a new virtualization rollout or managing an existing infrastructure, Splunk puts you back in control.
Third Brigade VM Protection
Third Brigade VM Protection is free software you can use to quickly establish a line of defense for as many as 100 virtual machines deployed in private or public clouds. Multiple layers of protection are combined in a single software agent to increase security and gain visibility into malicious activity targeting your VMs. Third Brigade VM Protection deploys quickly, is centrally managed, and is integrated with VMware vCenter Server for effective enterprise deployment.
Tripwire ConfigCheck
Tripwire ConfigCheck™ is a free utility you can use to rapidly assess your VMware ESX host configurations for compliance with the VMware VI3 Security Hardening guide. Co-developed by VMware and Tripwire, ConfigCheck provides an immediate assessment of the server configuration to ensure VMware Infrastructure environments are properly configured.
Take the Next Step
Visit the VMware Security Center to stay up-to-date on all current security issues or visit the VMware Virtual Appliance Marketplace to find certified virtual security appliances.
