Start with SaaS Security: End with Data Security

The 6/30 Virtualization Security Podcast with Simon Crosby Founder and CEO of Bromium started with a discussion of SaaS security but soon went to a discussion of Data Security. Simon left Citrix not to long ago to form a new company, Bromium, to seriously look into how the hypervisor itself can provide better security for data manipulations than it does today. But first we started off with SaaS and how you can Identify the user within a cloud.

Acquisitions by VMware and RSA Changing the Landscape

There were two announcements over the last few days that struck me as quite important to the virtualization community. While some may question this statement, the long reaching effects of these purchases will impact virtualization and cloud computing in not so distant future. In fact, these purchases could add a whole new layer to vSphere as we know it today. Which for VMware is a good thing. They need to continue to innovate to stay ahead of the pack. The purchases I talk about are:
VMware purchasing/taking over control of EMC Mozy
RSA purchasing NetWitness

Proving Identity in the Cloud

Unlike last year where there were many virtualization security vendors existed at RSA Conference, there was a noticeable lack of them within booths, yet all of them were here to talk to existing and potential customers. However, there were many vendors offering identity management in the cloud for these I asked the identity management product owners the following question:
How can you prove identity in the cloud?

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.

Sum of the Parts… Not equal to the Whole

Christofer Hoff (@Beaker) and I had a short discussion on twitter the other day about the VMware Cloud Director (vCD) security guidance. We both felt it was a bit lite and missed the point of Secure Multi Tenancy. However, I feel even more strongly that people will implement what is in the vCD Guidance, vBlock Security Guidance, and the vSphere Hardening Guidance, and in effect have a completely insecure cloud. These three guides look at the problem as if they were singular entities and not as a whole.

Altor Networks wins RSA Innovation Sandbox

While at RSA Conference I visited the RSA Innovation Sandbox and noticed that three out of ten virtualization security vendors were finalists:
* Altor Networks
* Catbird Security
* HyTrust
Alto Networks won the Innovation Sandbox contest and all that goes with it. Congratulations to them, but Altor’s win is actually a win for all virtualization security players. It shows that virtualization security is extremely important to the data center as well as moving forward to the cloud.