Kaspersky Lab Releases Company’s First Virtualization Security Solution

Kaspersky Lab announces the release of its latest security technology to ensure businesses will “Be Ready for What’s Next.” Kaspersky Security for Virtualization – built from the ground-up by Kaspersky Lab’s internal team of security experts – is focused on protecting evolving corporate IT infrastructures from malware and cybercriminals. Virtualization creates tremendous business and IT benefits for organizations globally, but if left unprotected these platforms may become a weak link for cybercriminals to exploit.

Kaspersky Security for Virtualization is delivered as a virtual security appliance that integrates with VMware vShield™ Endpoint to provide agent-less, anti-malware security based upon Kaspersky Lab’s advanced anti-malware engine. Developed from the same code-base as Kaspersky Lab’s award-winning line of endpoint security products, Kaspersky Security for Virtualization avoids the needless complexity and resource-drain associated with security programs that typically “bolt-on” acquired technology for virtual environments. With Kaspersky Lab, customers have a single, unified management platform for their virtual, physical and mobile environments.

In addition to plug-and-play compatibility with Kaspersky Lab’s own endpoint security offerings, Kaspersky Security for Virtualization seamlessly integrates with VMware vShield™ Endpoint Security, providing straightforward protection for virtual data centers, virtualized servers and desktops. Using VMware vShield™ Endpoint, the centrally managed Kaspersky Security for Virtualization automatically detects every virtual machine on the network, delivering files to the Kaspersky Lab client for real-time anti-malware scans. This integration with VMware vCenter™ means straightforward deployment, automatic protection of new virtual machines, mapping of both logical and physical computing structures, and automatic security updates, all delivering increased consolidation ratios for customers and managed by the Kaspersky Security Center administration console - “a single pane of glass.”

Petr Merkulov, Chief Product Officer, Kaspersky Lab, commented: “Our integration with VMware gives customers the ability to deploy Kaspersky Lab’s industry-leading security technology through their trusted VMware infrastructure. This is only the beginning of our partnership. We plan to develop more functionality with the VMware API, along with the ability to isolate any infected virtual machines before malware can spread across the network. Our valuable channel partners are thrilled to have an optimized virtualization solution added to their portfolio of Kaspersky Lab products. This is the first step for Kaspersky Lab’s virtual security offerings as we plan to expand our functionality across all popular virtualization platforms.”

The Kaspersky Lab Benefit - Unified Management of Virtual, Physical and Mobile Security

One of the greatest advantages of virtualization – IT resource efficiency – can suffer when sub-par security deployments apply physical security rules to virtual machines. By integrating with VMware vShield™ Endpoint, Kaspersky Security for Virtualization performs its anti-malware functions on a centralized virtual appliance. That eliminates the need for duplicated resources on each virtual machine. By freeing up virtual machine resources, Kaspersky Security for Virtualization can optimize performance, reduce hardware costs and energy consumption, and provide detailed logging of security tasks to satisfy compliance auditing requirements.

Additionally, businesses have a mix of virtual, mobile and physical endpoints, but IT administrators don’t want to manage multiple security programs from multiple consoles. Kaspersky Security for Virtualization doesn’t force customers to create silos responsible for securing each platform. Instead, it feeds data directly to the Kaspersky Security Center. Kaspersky Lab’s agent-based security applications are also “virtualization-aware,” letting customers decide for themselves what method for securing each virtual machine best meets their security needs. IT administrators can also provide customized security policies to selected virtual machine groups, just as easily as with physical machines. This unified management of all computing environments provides an unmatched mix of straightforward administration combined with next-generation protection.

When this streamlined virtualization manager is combined with Kaspersky Lab’s award-winning anti-malware engine, the difference is immediately apparent. Our industry-leading anti-malware engine provides superior detection rates and heuristic analysis to detect and block even the most sophisticated polymorphic malware. Moreover, by having Kaspersky Security for Virtualization deployed on a virtualized host appliance, virtual machines are all protected by the same centralized malware database which is constantly updated as new threats emerge. This model ensures all virtual machines receive the same level of protection, regardless of when the machines were created, or if they have been offline for extended periods of time. There are no “Instant-On” gaps for virtual machines that haven’t been used for extended periods of time and no “AV Storms” that hog network resources while updating virtual machines.

System Requirements and Availability

Kaspersky Security for Virtualization, combined with VMware vShield Endpoint, is compatible with vSphere 5.0; VMware hypervisor ESX/ESX 4.1 and 5.0; vCenter Server 5.0; vShield App 1.0; vShield Edge 1.0 and VMware View 4.5. Kaspersky Security for Virtualization provides agent-less protection for virtual machines running on most Windows operating systems, including Widows 7; Windows Vista; Windows XP; Windows Server 2008; Windows Server 2008 R2; and Windows Server 2003.

Kaspersky Security for Virtualization is included in Kaspersky Targeted Security Solutions product range starting from 10 April 2012. Please contact a Kaspersky Lab representative to check the product’s availability and prices.