Question

What are the principle security hardening steps for a virtual machine environment?

Answer 1

Following are the main steps in this case:

1. Removing hardware:

The unnecessary devices should be removed. This is because in a datacenter and especially virtual environment, there are no CD drives in physical servers. This is to prevent anyone from using removable devices.

2. Disable certain operations:

Certain operations on remote consoles such as copy/paste are also disabled.

3. Guest OS:

Guest OS is locked and this will reduce the use of consoles on virtual machines. This is done to save it from the unauthorized use of any kind.

4. Disconnecting devices by accident:

It is important that users without root privileges should not do anything with devices. They are given the rights to connect/disconnect devices. To save the devices, these options should be disconnected.

5. Data travel:

Data or information travel to a VMX file from a virtual device should be limited. This will keep the datastore from filling and prevent denial of service.