VMware bugs shine spotlight on virtualization security

This is dedicated to all of you who always mock to the sound of MS Virtual server as a virtualization solution. Computer World has published an article about a set of newly discovered flaws in components of VMware Inc.'s virtual machine software has called attention to some of the security risks associated with the practice of running virtual computers on a single system.

VMware has updated its products to fix the security bugs, disclosed Wednesday, but users who have not updated their software could face serious security risks thanks to a trio of flaws in the DHCP (Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol) server that ships with VMware.

The DHCP software is used to assign IP addresses to the different virtual machines running within VMware, but IBM Corp. researchers discovered that it can be exploited to gain control of the computer. That could be very bad news for someone running a lot of applications on the same VMware box, said Tom Cross, a researcher with IBM's Internet Security Systems group. "By exploiting this vulnerability you get complete control of any of the machines that are running on that virtual environment," he said.

IBM's researchers have developed exploit code for three separate flaws in the DHCP software, all of which are now patched, Cross said.

In order to attack a system, however, an attacker would first need to gain access to software running within the virtual machine. Typically VMware's DHCP server is not configured to be accessible to systems on other machines.

Virtualization software is one of the hottest areas in enterprise IT these days.

for the full article: Computer World