10 Ways Virtualization Can Improve Security

Virtualization is a type of process used to create a virtual environment. It allows the user to run multiple operating systems on the same computer at the same time. It is the creation of a virtual (rather than actual) version of something, such as an operating system, server, or network resources. For many companies, virtualization can be seen as part of a general trend in IT environments that will be able to manage themselves based on anticipated activity and service computing. The most important goal of virtualization is to reduce administrative tasks while improving scalability and workloads. However, virtualization can also be used to improve security. Here are 10 tips for minimizing risk and improving security to take full advantage of virtualization.

Virtualization and security

Many organizations think about the security implications after implementing new technology. Virtualization offers many benefits that make IT architectures easier to sell. Virtualization can save money, increase business efficiency, reduce maintenance downtime without impacting business or causing disruption, and it can do more work with less hardware. Of course, there are many ways to implement virtualization in IT sectors using network virtualization, storage virtualization, server virtualization and desktop virtualization. Each type can contain some type of security threat. There are many solutions for types of virtualization. The important thing is that virtualization can improve security, but it cannot prevent all attacks.

Virtualization can be used in many ways and requires appropriate security measures for each situation. This article will discuss ways that virtualization can be used to increase the security of your Windows environment.

Below are a few ways to minimize risk and increase security with virtualization:

Sandboxing

“Sandboxing” is a security mechanism for separating running programs that is often used to run untrusted code or programs from untrusted third parties, vendors and websites. The main purpose of sandboxing is to improve virtualization security by isolating the application to protect against external malware, malicious viruses, applications that stop execution, etc. etc. If you have an unstable or untrusted application, just put it in a virtual machine so that it doesn’t affect the rest of the system.

Sometimes you can get a malicious attack on your application when you run it in a browser, so it is always advisable to run your programs in a virtual machine. Sandbox technology is closely related to virtualization. Virtual computing offers some of the benefits of sandboxing without having to pay premium prices for a new machine. A virtual machine has a connection to the Internet rather than the company’s local network, so it protects the operating system and programs from viruses or malicious attacks on the virtual machine.

Server Virtualization

Server virtualization is server resource masking, which helps divide a physical server into smaller virtual servers to maximize resources. The administrator divides the physical server into multiple virtual environments. These days, official records are often stolen from servers by hackers. Server virtualization allows small virtual servers to run their own operating systems and reboot independently. Virtualized servers are used to identify and isolate unstable applications as well as compromised applications.

This type of virtualization is mostly used on web servers that provide low-cost web hosting services. Server usage manages the complex details of server resources, increasing utilization rates and maintaining capacity. A virtualized server makes it easier to detect malicious viruses or malicious elements by protecting the server, virtual machines and the entire network.

The advantage of using server virtualization is that it creates a layer of hardware abstraction between x86 hardware and the operating system. It also reduces the density of virtual servers relative to physical server hardware. Server virtualization creates an image of the server that makes it easy to tell if the server is not working properly.

Network Virtualization

Network virtualization is a combination of hardware and software network resources and combines network functions into a single virtual network. With network virtualization, virtual networks minimize the impact of malware when a system becomes infected. Network virtualization creates logical virtual networks out of the underlying network hardware for better integration with virtual environments.

An important feature of network virtualization is isolation. It allows you to dynamically create multiple virtual networks that coexist in isolation to deploy configurable end-to-end services on the fly. They are managed in these virtual networks for users by sharing and using network resources obtained from infrastructure providers.

Another major feature of network virtualization is segmentation, in which the network is divided into subnets, a process that results in improved performance by minimizing local traffic on the network and increasing security by making the internal structure of the network invisible to the outside. Network virtualization is also used to create a virtualized infrastructure to support complex requirements by creating single instances of software applications serving multiple clients.

Security Hypervisor

The term “hypervisor” refers to small software or hardware that creates and runs virtual machines. The machine that contains the hypervisor is called the host machine. Hypervisor security provides hypervisor-enabled virtualization, including development, deployment, provisioning, and management. (Read more about virtualization security: tips for preventing virtual machine hyperjumps.)

There are a few key security recommendations for hypervisors:

• Install vendor-issued hypervisor updates. Most hypervisors will have automatic software updates and will install updates when detected.
• Secure with thin hypervisors, which makes deployment easy and efficient to run with minimal computational effort. It also reduces the chance of malicious code attacking the hypervisor.
• Do not connect unused physical hardware to the host system or unused network cards to any network. Sometimes disks are used to back up data, so unused devices should be disabled unless they are actively used for backups.
• If you don’t need the file sharing service or any other service between the guest OS and the host OS, disable all unnecessary services.
• There must be security between guest operating systems so that they can communicate. Non-virtualized environments should be handled by security features such as firewalls, network devices, etc. Д.

Desktop Virtualization

Desktop virtualization allows images to be created, modified or deleted and separates the desktop environment from the physical computer that is used to access it. The administrator can easily manage employee computers and protect them from unauthorized access or virus intrusion. It provides more security for the user by providing a guest OS image for the desktop environment and does not allow data to be copied or saved to a drive other than the server, making desktop virtualization a more secure option for networking.

Security Infrastructure

A virtualized information infrastructure allows you to control access to resources and provides visibility to ensure proper information processing. All activities in the computing environment must be monitored through the infrastructure.

Virtual switches

A virtual switch is software that provides security using isolation, control and content inspection methods between virtual machines and allows one virtual machine to communicate with another.

This prevents an attack from occurring between switches. The primary purpose of a virtual switch is to provide a network connection to communicate with virtual machines and applications on a virtual network with a physical network.

Guest OS security

This is the operating system on the virtual machine, and it is used to host the primary operating system and share resources with other virtual machines on the same host. Virtualization allows you to share information with the OS using disks or folders created by network drives. It contains some security features such as systematic update of the guest OS, backup of virtual disks and application of the same policy to non-virtualized computers.

High availability and disaster recovery

These days, the most important thing is to keep data and services available in the IT sector. Virtualization reduces the time and cost of disaster recovery by backing up data to a large, unique file, which saves time when reinstalling the OS and restoring data. This allows you to restore the virtual machine to any host that meets the power requirements, and also provides the ability to recover quickly after a physical failure.

Server Isolation

Virtualization uses server isolation mainly for business purposes. Multiple servers can run on a single virtual machine without virtualization, but there is a risk in having multiple servers on a single server. Virtualization allows you to run multiple servers on the same machine, isolating the servers from each other as they run in different virtual machines.