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On the Utility & Granularity of Virtualization Security Guidelines

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Edward Haletky wrote an interesting piece recently titled "CISecurity Guide to VMware Security Falls Far Short" in which he lays down some well-articulated criticisms of the first CIS benchmark for VMware.

Edward’s primary problem with the benchmark can be summarized well by this paragraph:

While the Benchmark was the first of its kind, it is nothing more than the Linux benchmark with some small changes for VMware ESX. Following these steps will increase security but it is by no means a panacea. Do not let it give you a false sense of security.

I think Edward set his expectations a little high prior to review, as I’m pretty sure the word panacea wasn’t used in the syllabus πŸ˜‰

I don’t disagree with Edward that the flavor of the benchmark is very much a generic set of guidelines focused primarily on securing the underlying Linux-based service console and basic configuration for overall "system" hardening, but we need to realize a couple of things to keep the benchmark in perspective:

  1. The benchmark was the first of its kind.  It’s almost 10 months old!  The second version is underway right now as a matter of fact.
  2. In between when the benchmark was released and now, we’ve seen the emergence of the embedded version of VMware and much needs to change to address that.
  3. The benchmark was designed to be generic and give virtual system administrators a baseline on basic security hardening, not serve as the end-all, be-all for some mythical security end-state.
  4. The challenge for those of us who contributed (as I did) was that we had to keep the document vendor/tool agnostic which makes it difficult to frame solutions.
  5. Lots of things have changed.

Keep in mind that this is a "level 1" benchmark whose settings/actions are as follows:

  • Can be understood and performed by system administrators with any level of security knowledge and experience;
  • Are unlikely to cause an interruption of service to the operating system or the applications that run on it; and
  • Can be automatically monitored either by CIS Scoring Tools or by CIS Certified tools available from security software vendors. 

This isn’t about being defensive regarding the benchmark as I’ll agree that we could have done much, much more in terms of providing more meatier substance as it relates to how to better secure the ecosystem of mechanicals that a virtualized environment touches. 

However, the scope of a document that effectively addresses the security concerns across this immense landscape would be a huge undertaking.

One of the other difficulties in creating a guideline like this is the fact that those responsible for securing virtualized environments are not security professionals.  As I’ve spoken about previously, the operational realities of who is managing and securing our virtualized infrastructure is cause for concern.

Thus, when creating a guide like this, it’s best to start with the underlying basics and then branch out from there; involve the network and security teams as required.  As Edward himself wrote in this piece, "Good virtual security requires better IT teamwork," to properly secure your virtualized infrastructure, it’s going to take cooperation and expertise from many camps.    

Edward also has written a book titled "VMWare ESX Server in the Enterprise: Planning and Securing Virtualization Servers."  Interestingly, I found the security sections weak for many of the same high-level reasons he listed in his review of the CIS benchmark.  Security is most definitely in the eye of the "bookholder." πŸ˜‰

In the meantime, if you’re interested in some additional security/hardening guides and tools for VMware environments, check out the following:

/Hoff

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  1. Tom Howarth
    July 18th, 2008 at 04:33 | #1

    An interesting article, I have only one comment to make and that is about the book "VMWare ESX Server in the Enterprise: Planning and Securing Virtualization Servers." At no time has Edward Haletky marketed the book as a Security book, in fact the Security section of the book is but a small part accounting for approximately 70 pages of a 550 page book. it is more a primer for Virtualisation security than the whole 9 yards

  2. July 18th, 2008 at 07:56 | #2

    @Tom:
    The reason I quipped about Edward's book and it's ironic lack of security completeness was his criticism of other security guidelines/publications for the same.
    As to your point about it not being a "security book?" I'm not arguing that security was supposed to be the central theme, but I didn't create the title, "VMWare ESX Server in the Enterprise: Planning and Securing Virtualization Servers"…Edward did. It has the words "securing virtualization servers" in the title.
    As to your last point about how his book was supposed to be a "…primer for Virtualisation security than the whole 9 yards," that's my point regarding the documents he's criticizing as they weren't designed to be the end-all, be-all security bible, either.
    All's fair in love and war, ya know?
    /Hoff

  3. July 23rd, 2008 at 18:39 | #3

    Hey Mr Hoff,
    We are piloting a new extension to VMware's community called VI:OPS which is the start of a new home for proven practices… as in this article you rightly criticize generic/best practices, we are looking for "here's how I did it" practices, wrapped around context that helps people understand it / whether it is relevant for them.
    Fancy contributing instead of commenting? πŸ™‚
    Cheers!
    Steve

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