Blue Lane Provides Security for Virtual Machines

Blue Lane Technologies, a VMware Technology Alliance Partner, announced the immediate availability of VirtualShield, a software based vulnerability shield that is designed to provide instant protection for virtual machines running on the VMware Infrastructure 3 platform. The software was developed in cooperation with VMware, and it protects virtual machines from attacks against known, unpatched vulnerabilities.

One of the great things about virtual machines is the ease with which they can be created, replicated and brought online. Unfortunately, this can also translate into a huge drawback when using virtualization within a production environment as it has the potential to cause a serious security problem. As virtual machines get quickly replicated and rolled out, there is a tendancy to shy away from following standard procedures and best practices put in place with physical servers. As virtual server sprawl happens, these very same virtual machines tend to get overlooked when it comes time for patching and maintenance.

Blue Lane’s VirtualShield software attempts to address this very problem. VirtualShield for VMware Infrastructure 3 works at the hypervisor layer to protect the virtual machines on that host server. According to Blue Lane, the software watches for traffic coming in that violates known security or patching policies. When such a threat is detected, it prevents the virtual machine from being exposed.

“Vulnerability shields are a promising approach to mitigating the security risks of today’s IT environments,” said Brian Byun, vice president of global partners and solutions at VMware. “Blue Lane’s VirtualShield brings the benefits of vulnerability shields to VMware environments and gives our customers another option for securing their virtual infrastructure in ways that are simpler and more effective than those available for their physical environments.”

Challenges of Virtual Server Security

• Decoupling software and hardware breaks perimeter defenses that rely on a physical location or fixed IP address

• Dynamic and “offline” virtual servers evade vulnerability/patch management

• Agent-based security is challenging to manage and imposes significant costs

• Ease of server creation can lead to unmanageable sprawl

• Increasingly varied server stacks complicate regression testing and patching initiatives

Blue Lane VirtualShield Features and Benefits

• Protects virtual servers regardless of physical location or patch-level

• Eliminates remote threats without blocking legitimate application requests or requiring server reboots

• Up-to-date protection with no configuration changes and no agent installation on the host operating system

• Delivers appropriate protection for specific applications without requiring any manual tuning

VirtualShield for VI3 is priced at $499 per dual-processor VI3 server. To get started, try a 45-day trial of the software, here.