Vast amounts of data flow through virtualized environments these days. And that data needs to be protected. So making sure that your virtual machines are secured, along with their associated data, is key for maintaining operational continuity and safeguarding against cyber threats.

In this guide, you'll learn about VM-specific risks for data and workloads. I'll also provide some recommendations that can help you mitigate them. Implementing these data protection best practices can help you ensure production continuity, data availability, and regulatory compliance for your organization.

Table of Contents

Two of the Main Players: VMWare and Proxmox
Understanding the Risks of Virtual Environments
Specific Risks Associated with Virtual Environments
VM Data Protection and Secure Virtualization Best Practices
Advanced Protection Techniques

Two of the Main Players: VMWare and Proxmox

Both VMware and Proxmox offer robust solutions for virtualization, but they come with their own set of challenges and risks that can impact VM data protection.

VMware is the market leader in virtualization with almost 50% of the market share, which is both a boon and a bane.

On the one hand, VMware has a high-end, efficient portfolio of solutions to build IT environments of any complexity and size. On the other, such popularity means that malicious actors know what they can target during cyberattacks, posing challenges in virtualization security for VMware users.

Proxmox, a prominent alternative to VMware, also offers robust virtualization solutions. While Proxmox may have a smaller market share compared to VMware, it provides a comprehensive set of tools for managing virtual environments. It can also be a good choice for those looking for open-source solutions with flexibility and cost-efficiency.

Over three-quarters of organizations that have 50+ workers use server virtualization. So it's hard to overestimate the importance of the data that's circulating in their virtualized workloads.

The workloads themselves can be mission-critical and cause global disruption and downtime in case of failures. The data can also be crucial to run efficient services and generate revenue or be subject to compliance requirements.

Understanding the Risks of Virtual Environments

Before we proceed with VM security best practices, let’s go over some general security issues associated with virtual environments.

Data breaches are a regular issue that most IT protection systems experience. A lone hacker or an organized cybercriminal group can intrude into corporate environments to steal data. Their targets are typically clients' personal data, credit card info, credentials, and intellectual property.
Insider threats are usually the most underrated yet exceptionally dangerous issue. Malicious insiders sneakily strike from the inside of an organization’s security perimeter and may have advanced access privileges. This can lead to a global IT disaster, and preventing it is a high-level challenge.
Malware and ransomware attacks are an ever-evolving threat for organizations of all sizes and types.
System vulnerabilities and exploits. The supply chains of today’s IT services can be complicated and consist of multiple synchronized solutions. Every solution involved in service provisioning is a potential source of vulnerabilities that malicious actors can exploit upon discovery.

Specific Risks Associated with Virtual Environments

Understanding the risks of virtualization – particularly with VMware, one of the most popular virtualization platforms for enterprises, and Proxmox, which has seen increasing adoption in recent times – will help you and your team build an effective data protection system in your virtualized environments.

The unique threats associated with these platforms dictate how you should secure your virtual machines, servers, networks, and other virtualized nodes.

Key factors that can weaken virtualized infrastructure security include:

Hypervisor security vulnerabilities

VMware: Because of its extensive use in enterprises, attackers frequently target VMware. Major issues can arise due to the integration and complexity of VMware's hypervisor. The "ESXiArgs" ransomware strain takes advantage of VMware vulnerabilities to infiltrate computers before the distribution of updates.
Proxmox: While this open-source technology does have the potential for hypervisor vulnerabilities, the community can also provide security improvements such as timely patches, vulnerability reports, and enhancements to security protocols. Insufficiently managed upgrades or third-party modules can put Proxmox users at risk of security vulnerabilities.

VM sprawl

VMWare: The ease of deploying VMs in VMware can lead to VM sprawl, where numerous virtual machines are created but not adequately managed. IT teams can create a virtual machine, for example, to test a new feature in an isolated environment before releasing it in production. If not deleted after completing the task, the new virtual machine can remain in an environment without attention, maintenance, or security updates.
Proxmox: Proxmox's flexibility in managing virtual environments causes VM sprawl, which is more likely to affect smaller teams lacking strong monitoring. Its straightforward interface and streamlined deployment processes help to make creating and managing many virtual machines (VMs) a delight. While this helps with development and testing quickly, it can also cause an influx of virtual machines (VMs) to be launched without proper management or preparation.

Insecure VM configurations

VMware: A VMWare virtual machine itself is a complex environment with multiple configurations and dependencies. Misconfiguration of VMware's resources, operating systems, or applications can lead to additional virtual desktop security risks.
Proxmox: Users of Proxmox might also face security pitfalls due to misconfigured VMs, especially when utilizing custom templates or third-party integrations. Insufficient security settings can expose services and open ports, enabling unauthorized access.

Snapshot and clone risks

Inappropriate VM snapshot retention and maintenance policies in both Proxmox and VMware environments can cause storage overload. Creating too many VM clones can eventually lead to RAM and CPU deficiencies. Insufficiency of hardware resources then causes performance degradation and disk failures, resulting in downtime and data loss.

VM Data Protection and Secure Virtualization Best Practices

Data loss in virtualized environments, such as VMWare or Proxmox, can lead to fines, financial losses, and reputational damage for an organization.

Below are some recommendations on how to improve VM data security for virtual nodes, clusters, and infrastructures. The tips cover both virtualization-specific risks and those common to IT security, providing valuable insights for managing data protection effectively in both VMware and Proxmox environments.

Secure the Virtualized Environment

For starters, you can strengthen your environment with regular VM security practices. Consider implementing the following:

Strong access controls and authentication mechanisms.

Role-based access control (RBAC) is an efficient security measure that ensures users have only the access and privileges required to fulfill job duties. With roles set for every employee, their accounts become less dangerous under unauthorized access in case of, for example, compromised credentials.

This can help you either completely counter a security breach attempt or at least significantly mitigate the consequences of a protection failure. Two-factor authentication (2FA) added on top of that purposely complicates the login process, making regular passwords insufficient to hack and exploit an account.

Regular updates and patch management

Set up regular update checks for solutions included in your supply chain. Installing updates and especially security patches on time means that your system closes known vulnerabilities. This reinforces the security perimeter and can protect your environment from random breaches and brute-force attacks, supporting secure virtualization.

Network segmentation and isolation

Combined with external protection reinforcement, segmenting your network using virtual routers, firewalls and switches can be efficient in isolating critical workloads and data from major threats.

A complex internal environment poses an additional challenge for hackers preparing their attacks. Also, if a network scan shows that the infrastructure is ramified and segmented, some bad actors may even conclude that an attack is not worth the effort.

Backup and Recovery Strategies

Backups are essential in building an efficient VM data protection system. When all else fails, a backup can help you restore critical data and workloads with little to no downtime.

An efficient VM backup and recovery system includes:

Regular and automated VM backups. To ensure minimal downtime, you need a backup with a “fresh” recovery point recorded. Given the complexity of even the smallest corporate virtualized environments, only automation and scheduling backups can ensure their regularity.

Offsite and cloud-based backup solutions. In addition to onsite backups, consider sending data copies to offsite and cloud repositories. This helps you avoid a single point of failure and keep up with the 3-2-1 backup rule.

In case your main infrastructure is down due to a disruption, offsite backups in two different destinations can remain recoverable and accessible.

Disaster recovery planning and testing. Virtualized environments can include hundreds and thousands of virtual machines, servers and clusters to provide stable and efficient services.

To minimize downtime after global failures, you need to plan disaster recovery (DR) sequences and test them regularly. Set up a scheduled testing workflow to ensure checks.

Also, you might want to conduct disaster recovery testing sessions every time you introduce changes into your main virtualized environment.

Advanced VM data protection solutions for secure virtualization, such as NAKIVO Backup & Replication, provide the set of features and functions required to implement the above-mentioned VM backup recommendations.

As a regular user of the NAKIVO solution, specifically for protecting virtualized environments, I’ve experienced firsthand the benefits of its robust features. I highly recommend taking advantage of the free version of this solution, which is available until the end of 2024.

Monitoring and Auditing

One of the most efficient VM data protection best practices for virtualized environments is to monitor resource usage, VM health, and behavior. This includes the following:

Continuous monitoring of virtualized environments. Sufficient hardware resources are crucial for production continuity in virtualized environments. You may want to keep track of infrastructures in general and mission-critical VMs in particular. Thus, you can know the current resource consumption and predict scaling needs and budgets to support system stability as your organization grows.

Audit trails and logging. Audit trails and logging help you get a sequential record of specific activities and data within systems and their components. This includes failed and successful logins, MAC addresses and IPs of involved devices, access locations, data transactions as well as VM and policy changes.

Anomaly detection and response. With monitoring and logging established and functioning, you can detect anomalies in the behavior of users and VMs, and resource consumption changes within system nodes. With such behavioral data, you can timely react to potential security threats.

Advanced Protection Techniques

Advanced threat protection tips for virtual machines describe techniques related to encryption, intrusion detection and prevention systems, and additional security of applications and networks. Let’s review every technique in detail.

Encryption

In a modern IT landscape where any user is able to download and use traffic interception tools, unencrypted data is most likely public data. To enhance your VM data protection for secure virtualization, you can ensure:

Encrypting data at rest and in transit. Encrypt data during transmission (in flight) and throughout retention (at rest). Such all-round data encryption enables you to enhance protection from unauthorized access in most situations.
Implementing secure key management. For additional security, consider setting up an encryption key management system. This includes regular generation, secure exchange, storage and use, timely destruction and replacement of encryption keys.

Intrusion Detection and Prevention Systems (IDPS)

Intrusion detection and prevention systems are designed to scan and monitor networks and automatically take action to counter possible breaches.

Integrating IDPS with VMs. IDPS integration is about revealing the key nodes of your virtual environment and installing program “sensors” that track the situation around them. You can then count on software automation to take the first actions to counter possible intrusions as they occur.
Real-time threat detection and response. Consider developing specialized workflows for responding to intrusions after the IDPS detects them and stops the most obvious malicious activities. Keep in mind that modern cyberattacks can involve a multi-layered series of smaller hits to distract and deceive the defenders.

Application and Network Security

In addition to supply chain control, network segmentation, and isolation, you can make your VM data protection system more reliable with additional app and network security enhancements. For instance, consider the following steps:

Hardening VM applications. As apps can become weak links in your protection chain, consider hardening their protection. For example, remove unnecessary components and disable unwanted services that such applications might run. Also, you can set reliable passwords, regular code reviews and role-based access controls within apps.
Implementing firewall and VPN solutions. These are additional VM data protection best practices that specifically harden networks. External and internal firewalls can prevent unauthorized access to system elements, while VPN connections ensure secure access for authorized users.

Future Trends in VM Data Protection

The future of secure virtualization mainly depends on the evolution of relevant threats. The popularity of virtualization solutions, such as VMWare and Proxmox, defines the close attention that hackers pay to VM vulnerabilities and specifics.

Malicious actors also shape their ransomware, interception, and intrusion tools to become more dangerous to virtualized IT infrastructure. Sophisticated malware enables deeply customized attacks that exploit the VM security weaknesses of the organization’s infrastructure.

The improvement of AI algorithms can bring additional challenges to the field, making malware spread faster, becoming less detectable, and targeting priority nodes with efficient strikes.

However, the same idea works for VM security best practices. AI-driven cyber defense solutions can help detect and counter specific threats in VM environments with significantly better performance and efficiency.

Advanced VM threat detection based on behavioral analysis throughout the entire infrastructure can help reveal malware earlier. Prevention tools independently reacting to potentially dangerous changes in an environment can enable quick response and counter cyberattacks right after they begin.

Lastly, AI can learn how to enhance protection flexibility and introduce defensive changes in an environment depending on how a cyberattack develops. The boosted speed and variety of cybersecurity moves then promote virtualized security (and data protection as a whole) to notably higher effectiveness levels.

Conclusion

Thorough VM security is crucial for any organization that's using virtualized IT environments. Consider implementing strong access controls, patch management, network segmentation, monitoring, auditing and app security to counter key threats and mitigate their outcomes.

You might also want to build an advanced Proxmox replication or VMware backup system to have a swift data recovery option in case of a breach or system failure.

VM Data Protection Best Practices: How to Mitigate Risk in a Virtual Environment