IT managers leave virtual servers open to attack

Businesses seeking to save money by using virtual servers could be making themselves vulnerable to security attacks, Clavister has warned.

A YouGov poll commissioned by the security specialist found that two in five IT managers who have opted for virtual servers may have left their company open to attack from malware and hackers because they wrongly believed that security was built into the virtual environment.

The misconception is based on the belief that virtual environments continue to be protected by a firewall, in the same manner as physical environments.

However, in a virtual environment, traffic does not have to leave the virtual infrastructure, and is not necessarily checked and protected by the firewall.

Andreas Åsander, Clavister’s VP of product management, explained: “Virtualization offers new points of attack and gives access to a far wider number of applications than a traditional physical server.

As such, “securing the virtual environment cannot be approached in the same way as the physical environment.”

He added that in a virtual environment, worms and Trojans can start by infecting a less secure machine, such as a community portal or Web forum, and can then jump to attack financial systems or databases.

“Segmentation in a physical environment prevents worms from spreading,” Åsander said.

“But in a virtualized environment you do not have that segmentation so a hacker in your Web system can easily jump over to your financial systems or databases.”