VMware Cloud Foundation Gets Security Breakthrough At RSA
‘There must be a new approach to cybersecurity – one that is built-in, unified and context-centric,” says VMware’s Chief Operating Officer Sanjay Poonen.
VMware’s popular VMware Cloud Foundation is receiving a major shot in the arm with new security capabilities from Carbon Black and NSX as the virtualization star continues its march to make security intrinsic in all its products.
At RSA 2020 conference on Tuesday, VMware unveiled that VMware Advanced Security for Cloud Foundation – which is the basis for offers such as VMware Cloud on AWS and VMware Cloud on Dell EMC – will inject Carbon Black’s workload protection Real-time Workload Audit/Remediation technology as well as its Next-Generation Antivirus (NGAV) and Endpoint Detection & Response (EDR) solutions.
Additionally, VMware’s NSX Advanced Load Balancer with Web Application Firewall capabilities and NSX Distributed IDS/IPS can be added to VMware Cloud Foundation deployments. The NSX and Carbon Black technology will integrate with VMware vSphere.
[Related: VMware Licensing VP: CPU Pricing Change Has ‘Zero Impact’]
For more than a year, VMware has had its sights set on disrupting the security industry by tightly integrating security into every product, a strategy it dubs as intrinsic security.
Sanjay Poonen, chief operating officer, customer operations for VMware, said there has never been a more challenging time in security.
“Attacker sophistication, security threats, breaches, and exploits are becoming more prevalent with no end in sight. And with cloud, new applications, pervasive mobility, IoT, and data at the edge, the problem is only getting harder to solve. There must be a new approach to cybersecurity – one that is built-in, unified and context-centric,” Poonen said in a statement. “We believe the best strategy and approach is to make security intrinsic enabling organizations to leverage their infrastructure and its unique capabilities across any app, any cloud and any device to better secure the world’s digital infrastructure – from networks, to endpoints, to workloads, to identities, to clouds.”
VMware Carbon Black will be tightly integrated with VMware vSphere to create an agentless solution which eliminates the need to insert antivirus and other agents. VMware says endpoint telemetry will be managed and gathered via built-in sensors protected by the hypervisor.
Adding the scale-out software architecture of NSX Web Application Firewall to VMware Cloud Foundation will help confirm that web servers have enough compute capacity for maximum security filtering even under peak loads. VMware’s web application firewalls leverages its understanding of application, automated learning and app-specific rules to provide strong security with lower false positives.
Adding NSX Distributed IDS/IPS to Cloud Foundation environments will provide intrusion detection on many difference services to offer deeper visibility as well as enable advanced filtering to be applied to every hop of the application to reduce any blind spots.
In an interview with CRN last year, VMware CEO Pat Gelsinger said VMware has the ability to take the security market by storm.
“We have two assets that nobody else on the planet has. We have the VM. We’re building this intrinsically into the VM. A lot of problem with a lot of security today is they end up being agents that you add into the guest environment. If you’re an attacker, the first thing you do is turn off the agents. Right? Those techniques of turning off the agents or spoofing the agents, there’s probably 100 free kits you can download to do that. The VM can’t be turned off. This sits as a capability inside of the VM,” said Genslinger.
“[Then] with our NSX, I now have an enforcer point, where you can see the network traffic and see all of it from an application-centric [point of view]. So the VM is handing traffic into NSX and then to the microsegments -- there’s nothing else sitting in-between that. You don’t have to hairpin to some remote firewall or some other service. You have that explicit point right at connectivity into the networking layer that either gives you visibility of all traffic coming in or enforcement of traffic going out,” said Gelsinger. “Those are two very powerful points that we don’t think anybody else is anywhere close to us in being able to do those two things for very fundamental, technical and market-based reasons.”
VMware made a huge splash in the security market in October with the acquisition of endpoint security leader Carbon Black for a value of $2.1 billion.
In addition to the new security features on VMware Cloud Foundation announced at the RSA 2020 conference, the Palo Alto, Calif.-based company launched new capabilities for the VMware Carbon Black Cloud.
VMware introduced automated correlation with MITRE ATT&CK framework Technique IDs -- a which is a list of common tactics, techniques, and procedures -- built into the VMware Carbon Black Cloud, allowing customers to discover potential threats and identify areas of improvements. Additionally, VMware Carbon Black will be adding malware prevention capabilities for Linux machines to enable customers to migrate away from other endpoint prevention solutions specific to Linux.
The RSA 2020 conference in San Francisco runs Feb. 24-28.
Malware Fighter Pro from IObit software uses Two Anti-Virus Engines – Did you know?
In this quick post, I wanted to give it a try to the IObit Malware Fighter software. I have to warn you a bit here, because when I have installed the Free version, it also installs two other software without my consent. (not very nice indeed). It also installs iTop VPN and iTop Screen Recorder. I do hope this happens ONLY with the free version. Anyway, two clicks and it's uninstalled if you don't need those. The reason I downloaded the product is that I wanted to have a look at their software and I know that IObit has many more products (Advanced system care etc…) you could be interested in. But let's start and delve into the product.
More and more Malware is around. That's a fact. Perhaps it is high time to get good anti-malware software. Let's see if the one from IObit is the one that stands up. Malware today, it's not only some bad guy's software running on your system. You need anti-phishing protection as those phishing attacks are more and more frequent and sophisticated. Ransomware is on the rise not only within the enterprise section, but touches SMBs, and individuals too.
Malware Fighter Pro is an award-winning antivirus software that protects your PC from various online threats, such as viruses, ransomware, spyware, trojans, adware, and worms. Malware Fighter Pro uses two antivirus engines, its own and Bitdefender, to detect and remove malware with high accuracy and speed. It also has a large anti-malware database that can detect over 200 million malware.
The software has multiple layers of protection for your PC and your privacy. It has a ransomware protection feature that prevents your files from being encrypted by hackers. It also has a privacy protection feature that allows you to lock your sensitive data with a password and block unauthorized access. Moreover, it has a webcam security feature that prevents intruders from using your webcam without your permission.
Malware Fighter Pro also enhances your browsing experience by keeping you away from phishing websites, malicious ads, and tracking cookies12. It also has a browser password guard feature that encrypts and protects your local browser password data from leaks. Malware Fighter Pro is easy to use and compatible with all versions of Windows OS. It has a user-friendly interface and a smart scan mode that can scan your PC in a few minutes. It also has a behavior guard feature that warns you of potential threats or suspicious activities in advance.
According to the official website of IObit Malware Fighter Pro, it uses two antivirus engines, its own and Bitdefender, to achieve a higher level of malware detection and removal. The IObit engine can detect and remove common malware, while the Bitdefender engine can handle more advanced and sophisticated threats. By combining these two engines, Malware Fighter Pro can provide comprehensive and reliable protection for your PC.
The free version enables you to have basic protection where not all areas of protection are active. Screenshot from the lab below.
You need to buy the Pro version to enable the Anti-ransomware engine, Bitdefender engine, MBR guard, USB disk guard, Behavior guard or browser password guard.
However, some experts advise against using more than one antivirus program on the same computer, as this can cause conflicts, performance issues, and false alerts. I don't think it is the case as the integration with Bitdefender is done internally so you don't need to run Bitdefender software and at the same time IObit software.
On the Toolbox menu, you can enable a Safe Box which can block access to some files/folders on your system. Also, you can see that a VPN system comes as an optional offer.
The menu on the left hand side has several sections. One of them is scan section.
Scan
You can initiate a Smart scan, Full Scan, or custom scan. Options that might be useful when suspecting that your system has a problem. You can drag and drop file onto the window and do a custom scan or execute full scan with a delete/clean action with shutdown at the end of the scan.
Example of custom scan with System Critical Areas and Suspicious processes…..
This menu is again, show what's protected and what's not. You can add Surfing protection or Anti-Tracking, within the pro version. Anonymous Online option is the iTOP VPN protection we have talked about in the beginning of the article. It's there. If you don't have or use other VPN… why not? It's integrated somehow in the product where by clicking the link you get to the page with the offer and install it on your system.
Looks solid.
Overall, the software looks like destined for nonexperienced users who need to be carried by hand. It's simple to use and navigate through.
The IOBit Malware Fighter Pro has been here for a very long time. The first release was out back in 2010 so the product has a good background with a lot of experience under the belt. We cannot test the effectiveness of removals or detections, but it seems like a solid product that has its place here.
Take a look here – Malware Fighter Pro
Can I recommend using it? For sure I can. Except for the “forced install” the Malware Fighter is a good piece of software, but it's not alone within the security space. It's just one of them, with long experience in the field.
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