The Virtualization Security Podcast on 11/2 was quite a change from our normal podcast. Instead of featuring a vendor as a guest panelist, Gurusimran S Khalsa (known as GS) joined us. Our topic was getting started with virtualization security with a real world twist.
Edward L. Haletky, aka Texiwill, is an analyst, author, architect, technologist, and out-of-the-box thinker. As an analyst, Edward looks at all things IoT, big data, cloud, security, and DevOps. As an author, he has written about virtualization and security. As an architect, Edward creates peer-reviewed reference architectures for hybrid cloud, cloud-native applications, and many other aspects of the modern business. As a technologist, Edward creates code prototypes for parts of those architectures. Edward is solving today’s problems in an implementable fashion.
PCI DSS: Virtualization Ready?
The PCI Security Standards Council published its latest PCI guidance in the form of PCI DSS 2.0, but quickly followed up with the document Navigating the PCI DSS v2.0. The Navigating document is very important to those who have virtual systems as it contains the basic guidance about virtualization while PCI DSS 2.0 does not provide anything specifically geared towards virtualization. However, there is an adjunct document that does layout PCIs thoughts on virtualization. This is stated within the Navigating the PCI DSS (v2.0) document.
Low Hanging Fruit of Virtualization Security
I was invited to CSI 2010 this year to speak on the Low Hanging Fruit of Virtualizaiton Security. This presentation brought to light some simple to implement features that would give you the most security for what I consider very little cost or effort. These 7 items if implemented will improve the overall security of your virtual environment.
Major Virtualization Security Annoucements
Last week, there were several major virtualization security announcements, that taken singularly may only apply to the specific products, but taken together show the growth of the virtualization security ecosystem.
Citrix FlexCast – Interesting Security Considerations
The Virtualization Security Podcast on 10/21 was the third in a series of Virtual Desktop Security discussions we are having. The special guest panelist was Chris Mayers of one of the Chief Security Architects for Citrix, the makers of XenServer, XenClient, and the FlexCast solutions. FlexCast provides an all encompassing method to provide virtual desktop and applications that include the following mechanisms:
Let us look at each of these mechanisms in a bit of detail then discuss how they work to provide Security and how to secure them.
Client Hypervisor Security
The Virtualization Security Podcast on 10/7 was the second in a series of Virtual Desktop Security discussions we will are having. The special guest panelist was Simon Graham of Virtual Computer, the makers of NxTop a client side hypervisor based on Xen. On this podcast, we went into the details of NxTop.
The engineers at Virtual Computer have thought about nearly everything when it comes to a Client Hypervisor. NxTop operates as a standalone or as a centrally managed client hypervisor. The difference is fairly stark. I feel that most people in the Enterprise unless this is a one off situation would want to use the managed client hypervisor.