Securing a Virtualized Environment Stefano Alei Senior Systems Engineer.

Securing a Virtualized Environment

Stefano Alei

Senior Systems Engineer

Agenda

• Security Trends

• Fundamentals on Security

• Security in a Virtualized Environment

• Best Practices for Securing Virtual Machines

• Benefit of the VMware Solutions

Agenda

• Security Trends

• Fundamentals on Security

• Security in a Virtualized Environment

• Best Practices for Securing Virtual Machines

• Benefit of the VMware Solutions

Security Trends

IBM Source - January 2007

The Ten Most Important Security Trendshttp://www.sans.org/resources/10_security_trends.pdf

• Mobile Devices1. Laptop encryption will be made mandatory at many government

agencies and other organizations that store customer/patient data and will be preinstalled on new equipment.

2. Theft of PDA smart phones will grow significantly.• Government Action

3. Congress and state governments will pass more legislation governing the protection of customer information

• Attacks Targets4. Targeted attacks will be more prevalent, in particular on

government agencies.

5. Cell phone worms will infect at least 100,000 phones, jumping from phone to phone over wireless data networks.

6. Voice over IP (VoIP) systems will be the target of cyber attacks.http://www.sans.org/resources/10_security_trends.pdfSANS Source - Year 2006

The Ten Most Important Security Trends

http://www.sans.org/resources/10_security_trends.pdf

• Attack Techniques

7. Spyware will continue to be a huge and growing issue.

8. 0-day vulnerabilities will result in major outbreaks resulting in many thousands of PCs being infected worldwide

9. The majority of bots will be bundled with rootkits.

• Defense Actions

10.Network Access Control will become common and will grow in sophistication. As defending laptops becomes increasingly difficult, large organizations will try to protect their internal networks and users by testing computers that want to connect to the internal network.

SANS Source - Year 2006

Agenda

• Security Trends

• Fundamentals on Security

• Security in a Virtualized Environment

• Best Practices for Securing Virtual Machines

• Benefit of the VMware Solutions

The C.I.A. Triad

Availability

Confidentiality Integrity

SecurityObjectives

Security Threats

An Integrated Approach

Administrative, technical, and physical controls should workin a integrated manner to protect a company’s assets.

Physical ControlsPhysical ControlsFacility protection, security guards, locks, monitoring, intrusion detection

Technical ControlsTechnical ControlsAccess control, encryption, security devices,

identification and authentication

Administrative ControlsAdministrative ControlsPolices, standars, guidelines, security-

awareness training, screening personnel,

Company Data Company Data and Assetsand Assets

An Integrated Approach

Security must be an integral part Security must be an integral part of the company policyof the company policy. Lack of

planning and a lack of proper processes or procedures are the

main reasons leading to problems !

An Integrated Approach

• Security Managements Practices

• Access Controls

• Telecommunications and Networks

• Cryptography

• Security Architecture

• Operation Security

• Applications and System Development

• Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery

• Physical Security

Security Managements Practices

Security Managements Practices

• Security Policy Implementation•Security Policy

•Standards

•Baseline

•Procedures

• Roles and Responsability

• Risk Management

• Security Awareness

Security Trends

Access Controls• DoS / DDoS• Backdoor• Spoofing• Man-in-the-Middle• Replay• TCP Hijacking• Social Engineering• Dumpster Diving• Brute Force• Dictionary Attack

• Software Exploitation• Trojan• Virus• System Scanning

Security Managements Practices

Telecommunications and Network• Protocols• Firewall• IDS / IPS• Wireless• VoIP• Network Attacks and Abuse

•Logon abuse•Eavesdropping•Network Intrusion•Sessions Hijacking•Fragmentation Attacks

Security Managements Practices• Cryptography

• Symmetric• Asymmetric• Public Key Infrastructres

Julius Caesar

Security Trends

Cryptography• Symmetric• Asymmetric• Spoofing• Man-in-the-Middle• Replay• TCP Hijacking• Social Engineering• Dumpster Diving• Brute Force• Dictionary Attack

• Software Exploitation• Trojan• Virus• System Scanning

Agenda

• Security Trends

• Fundamentals on Security

• Security in a Virtualized Environment

• Best Practices for Securing Virtual Machines

• Benefit of the VMware Solutions

A New Architecture

More Flexible• Easier to deploy VMs and Virtual Appliances

More Powerful• Easier to setup a server, configured as you need

Excellent for quick setup of an application through Virtual Appliances

A Virtualized Environment

Potential Security Issues

A New Architecture• You have to face new potential security threats (VM Mobility; VM

tampering; patching; communications channels; etc.)• Hypervisor layer is the equivalent of a new OS; • Potential for server sprawl (VM creation); • Unprecedented mobility (VMotion, etc);

More Flexible• Easier to lose control

More Powerful• Easier to overlook some actions that could become dangerous

Excellent for quick setup of an appliance thought Virtual Appliances

• You have to face the potential security threats related to VAs

Agenda

• Security Trends

• Fundamentals on Security

• Security in a Virtualized Environment

• Best Practices for Securing Virtual Machines

• Benefit of the VMware Solutions

Security Best Practices

VM Security During Planning, VM Security During Planning, Installation and ConfigurationInstallation and Configuration

Security Best Practices

Virtual or physical, organizations need to pay attention to security, and the fact that infrastructure is virtual

doesn't make it inherently less secure

Keep the host OS thin and hardened (Gartner)

• Bare-metal solution

• ~1000 times less code than a regular OS

• Favor hypervisor-based systems

• Favor implementations in which the hypervisor is stored in firmware (VMvisor)

• Hypervisor and VMM provider must be able to support any hardware-based capabilities of the processor to prevent execution of code from areas of memory marked for data usage (NX/XD flag)

Security Best Practices

Use processors that natively support

virtualization (Gartner)

• VMware support it… but for performance reasons, not specifically for security

• Virtualization theory states that virtualization does not enable anything that was not already possible with a physical machine.

Security Best Practices

Protect from resource Denial of Service• Advanced Resource Management support of

VI3 address exactly this potential threat

Enforce the principle of least privilege• By default, two VMs should never directly

communicate with each other (including disk blocks or LAN resources) unless explicitly permitted

• Transparent Memory Sharing, even if useful for resource optimization, can be disabled if security reason require to do that

Security Best Practices

Be Wary of SW-Based Security “Appliances"

• Virtual Appliances are a new flexible and powerful tools in your hands.

• Always be careful when something is installed in your infrastructure. Do the same with virtual appliances !

Avoid shared IP addresses• In VMware ESX is the only way to setup IP addressing

Plan for dynamic IP addresses

• VMware products never change the VM's IP or MAC address unless the user explicitly reconfigures it. VMotioned VMs retain their same IP and MAC as well

Security Best Practices

Plan for portable security protection

• The port group feature of VMware ESX Server provides the capability mentioned, namely, the ability to dynamically apply networking security policy as VMs migrate.

Don't use internal VLAN capabilities as the

sole means of separating workloads ofdifferent trust levels.

• This might be a valid recommendation for certain virtualization platforms, and certainly can be implemented easily on VMware Infrastructure

Security Best Practices

Security Best Practices

VMVM Vulnerability and Vulnerability and Configuration ManagementConfiguration Management

Lock down and configure each VM asappropriate to the organization's standardguidelines for the OS being hosted

• Most security vulnerabilities occur through human error — misadministration and mismanagement — and VMs will be no exception

Baseline the correct virtual server configuration

All partitions must be patched• VMware is actively working about patching

offline images• Keep the host OS and all guest OS partitions

patched

Security Best Practices

Lock down and configure each VM asappropriate to the organization's standardguidelines for the OS being hosted

• Most security vulnerabilities occur through human error — misadministration and mismanagement — and VMs will be no exception

Baseline the correct virtual server configuration

All partitions must be patched• VMware is actively working about patching

offline images• Keep the host OS and all guest OS partitions

patched

Security Best Practices

Regularly scan all partitions for vulnerabilities

Regularly scan for correct VMM and VM configuration.

Don't overlook VM and application appliances

Deactivate hyperthreading for guest OSs

Security Best Practices

Security Best Practices

VMVM Intrusion PreventionIntrusion Prevention

Plan for a network firewall or an additional VM-based IPS protection if needed

• VMware virtual machines communicate with each via a network switch, just as with any physical server, so there is no reason for increased rate of infection

Keep signatures, filters and rules updated for offline VMs

• VMware is actively working about patching offline images

Protect invisible internal network traffic• place a "network-based IPS" inside of the server (a host-

based network IPS that monitors internal virtual network traffic) to inspect this traffic

Security Best Practices

•Alarm on incorrect network configuration or information flows

• Hashing to detect on configuration files changes

•Protect VM images• Strict access control to protect VM images

•Protect online and offline VM configuration and policy files.

• Implement forbidding MAC address changes by the guest and rejecting forged MAC address transmission

•Detect (and potentially block) unauthorized VM management sessions.

Security Best Practices

Security Best Practices

Identity and Access ManagementIdentity and Access Management

Don’t let one person managing all the devices • Enforce Separation of Duties (SOD)

SOD makes sure that one individual cannot complete a critical task by himself.

Avoid the same person can manage the hosts and the Virtual Machine

Use Role Based Access Control

• RBAC is the model used in Virtual Center

Security Best Practices

Minimize per-VM administrative accounts.• It’s difficult to control and audit permission if

sprawled

• Perform periodical permission review

• Take extreme care of “root” privileges

Perform regularly auditing • Analyze and protect log files

• Use correlation tools and clipping level

• Implement x VM life-cycle management

Security Best Practices

Security Best Practices

Network Access ControlNetwork Access Control

Security Best Practices

Network Access Control grants access to enterprise network resources is granted

based upon authentication of the user and device as well as only if compliat with policy

Modify the organization's NAC process and technologies to control VM access to the network• Very difficult to apply for NAT based VMs

• No solution available on the market for NAT based VMs

• NAC technology can be fooled of MAC/IP moving Not happen in VMware infrastructure

Ensure VMs (and VMMs) that connect conform to policy

• Favor VM creation using proved templates

Security Best Practices

Don’t let one person managing all the devices • Enforce Separation of Duties (SOD)

SOD makes sure that one individual cannot complete a critical task by himself.

Avoid the same person can manage the hosts and the Virtual Machine

Use Role Based Access Control

• RBAC is the model used in Virtual Center

Security Best Practices

Security Best Practices

Business Continuity andBusiness Continuity andDisaster RecoveryDisaster Recovery

Security Best Practices

Disaster Recovery try to minimize the effects of a disaster and take the

necessary steps to ensure that the resources, personnel, and

business processes are able to resume operation in a timely manner

VMware virtualized environment improve greatly the Disaster Recovery

implementation

Business Continuity planning, provides methods and procedures for dealing with longer-term outages and disasters• A disaster recovery plan is carried out when everything is still in

emergency mode

• A business continuity plan (BCP) takes a broader approach to the problem

Security Best Practices

Avoid any “technically” single point of failure• Leverage HA functionality

• Implement DRS solution to avoid resource intensive workload degrade the performance of single servers

• Implement VCB solution to have information backups ready

Plan properly for dangerous events• Natural Disaster (flooding, earthquakes, hurricanes, fire etc.)

• Power Failure (VMware is a Green Grid member)

• Human behaviors (terrorist attacks, strikes, errors, theft etc)

Security Best Practices

Q & A