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Protecting Virtual Sessions_What You Need to Know.pdf (116.21 KB)

While virtualization is not a new concept in the IT sector, figuring out ways to secure virtual sessions is still very much of a hot topic. In fact, the speedy adoption of virtualization has led some companies to overlook some fundamental security concerns. This CIO.com article examines some of the main areas where security practices are falling short.

Tried, true, but not necessarily effective?
The root of the problem is that traditional security measures-i.e., the ones developed and used for physical servers-aren't necessarily effective for virtualized environments. This article from Help Net Security offers a concise introduction to the topic of virtualization security. A recent networkworld.com feature offers a similarly comprehensive take on the issue, and also incorporates the results of some recent findings from Gartner.

Agents and patching
Drill down a bit and you see that patching and the use of agents on individual PCs present some of the most serious challenges. This article from SearchServerVirtualization.com (Note: free registration required) lays out the issues involved with agents on individual machines. While it's a few years old, this piece from Digital Software magazine provides a thorough take virtualization's impact on IT risk management. And this ZDNet blog post offers tangible strategies for managing and protecting a virtualized environment.

Solutions
As you might expect, the industry has been aggressively addressing these issues. Depending on what virtualization infrastructure you use, there are different solutions out there. IBM has been doing some intensive work in this realm. Shavlik NetChk Protect was one of the first software suites to enable offline virtual machine patching. And Trend Micro Deep Security provides an advanced, agentless solution.

How else can you ensure that you're protected? The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has released a set of guidelines for addressing virtualization's risks. And Microsoft offers this best practices guide in a handy top-10 list format.

Bottom line: The virtualization is evolving rapidly, and could well look quite different in a year or even six months from now. It pays to stay on top of the latest developments.

For more information on protecting virtual sessions, contact Productive Corporation:

• Phone: 1.800.726.4099
• Email: help@productivecorp.com