Virtualization Might Break Compliance

I recently read a Gabriel Consulting Group survey entitled 2011 Data Center Security Survey: Virtualization & Clouds. One statistic that really struck me was that approximately 65 percent of the respondents said that they were going to use “the same security mechanisms for physical and virtual systems.” This is an amazing statistic since most security solutions are not optimized for both virtualized and physical environments.

Let’s look at a couple of examples: In the physical world an IPS or firewall sits in-line with the network traffic and it can block malicious or inappropriate traffic. However, if you park one of these devices in front of a virtualized server it will never see the intra-VM traffic. So, if multiple Virtual Machines (VM) are communicating with each other (within the same physical server) the IPS or firewall will never see that virtualized network traffic. Now, let’s assume that one of those VMs contains credit card data. PCI DSS 11.4 says that you must use an IDS/IPS to monitor all traffic in the cardholder data environment. It seems to me that your traditional security, which relies on ports, protocols and IP addresses, isn’t going to keep you compliant. And, that brings me to my second point. In the virtual world VMs migrate to other physical machines for load balancing. How is that physical security device, which is rooted by IP addresses, going to migrate with your VM?

Fortunately, McAfee has many security solutions that work in both physical and virtual environments. They will not only keep you compliant but they will allow you to have a consistent security policy across both environments. And, those policies are all managed from one management console.

By: Stephen Karkula

Technology News Roundup

First up this week in the news – kids and “screen time”.
A study by the American Academy of Pediatrics says kids under two should not be watching television or even be in the room when you are watching. That means no Netflix or Hulu on the iPad or PC either! I remember when my oldest was an infant, he would start to cry if I was upset watching my soaps. I stopped watching because I knew he was reacting to the subtlest of mood changes. What are your thoughts?


I saw this post from McAfee Labs about an Android virus that is being spread via QR code. QR Codes are those images that are popping up in magazines and in stores. You scan the image with the camera built into your smartphone and it opens up a webpage with content about that item or store.
 
I have been using QR codes that I find in magazines and I had no idea that QR codes could link to malware. This particular virus sends text messages from your phone to a premium number that charges users. The solution to this is to use a QR scanner that previews the code before it brings you to the site. See this post by Jimmy Shah with McAfee Labs to get suggestions for QR scanner apps for both Android and iPhone and some tips to keep your phone and phone bill safe.

Netflix lost 800,000 customers since they made all of their changes to the service.  I have not left Netflix and I still stream movies online and get disks in the mail, but I am disappointed in the selections since new movies have a delay in being available.  If you are/were a customer, what did you do with the changes? Is there a service you like better?

My kids stream movies often and I realized that my cyber son #2 has hit that age where he is old enough to figure out how to stream what he wants to, but I still want to filter some of the selections. He was telling me about a movie he wanted to watch on Netflix which just sounded inappropriate, gross and well, I just don’t want him to watch it! I can block it using McAfee Family Protection on my PC and devices. We can also block it on our gaming console using the parental controls.

But what if he goes to a friend’s house? I had to explain to him why I didn’t think he should watch it and give good reasons – the content was not something that I would want to watch, it was violent, it was demeaning to women and once you see that type of content it is hard to get it out of your head. After my discussion with him, I have to let go and trust him.

I hope you all have a great week!

Stay safe out there!

By: Tracey Mooney