Virtual Machine/Hardware Network Security Clarification Required

[hrecletr]

Hi everyone,

I’m a student and I’m going to ask what may be a noob question for some of you and I really apologise, but hey, everyone is a noob at some point.

Basically, I’m reading conflicting information and require some clarity from someone more learned than myself.

My interest is in internet security and networking and I’m basically trying a few things out and self-teaching alongside my course. I’m getting pretty interested in virtual machines and virtual hardware but I am only just discovering this stuff.

I really want to put into practice what I’ve learnt so I’m building my own network to utilize and will eventually put it online, let people know it’s there and see how long it takes until I have a total network breach and with a bit of luck, learn from my mistakes.

Unfortunately, my funds are limited and I only really have access to 1 machine that I can mess around with and risk corrupting the system.

As money is not available to acquire all this gear, I’m considering the idea of constructing a virtual network to incorporate all these aspects.

But as I said I’m reading conflicting information.

I’ve read that:

“ if designed correctly, a virtual machine and virtual hardware set up such as this will be capable of providing the same level of internet security achievable as if you were to use physical hardware and machines. ”

I’ve then read:

“ virtual machines and hardware are not capable of providing the same security a physical hardware and machine solution can provide. ”

 

Can someone please tell me which is correct?

[+LogicalApex MVC]

If you're attempting to setup a box you're intending to be used as a target by someone else maliciously, meaning they are supposed to conduct pen testing on, then I'd say the second quote is more applicable...

 

Virtual Machines are, as you probably already know, software (and hardware) isolated computers within a computer. So, a modern virtual machine will provide security very similar to separate physical machines. Especially, when using modern hardware where native virtualization support is built into the processor and base level system components. This allows the processor, and other components, to also play an active role in security. That being said, these systems can fail or be compromised through an known (but unpatched) or unknown vulnerability. As a result, they can't be equal to the security of separate machines, but their security isn't as low as running everything on one box without any virtualization. A good comparison would be Hyper-Threading from Intel. Hyper-Threading isn't equal to 2 cores, but it isn't equal to one core either... It is a lot closer to 1.5 cores... So see virtualization from a similar perspective.

 

What you're wanting to do is perfectly fine with virtual machines so long as you don't put them online. Keeping them offline you can setup very complicated virtual networks, even using one VM host depending on your hardware and needs, where you can learn network security and penetration testing. Just don't open this up to the Internet as a whole until you understand things a lot more...

[+BudMan MVC]

"“ virtual machines and hardware are not capable of providing the same security a physical hardware and machine solution can provide. ”"

 

Where did you read this, and in what context?

 

Did someone let MS (Azure) and Amazon know (AWS) heheheeh

 

You do understand that hardware still has software running on it..  Virtual is just different software running on hardware, etc.  Would really like to know the context of such a statement..  You have a issue with virttual, if it is somehow possible to breakout of the virtual and access the host, then you would have access to all the other virtual systems running on that hardware "host" etc..  So that could be a concern, but again without context such a blanket statement is worthless..