Virtualization Vulnerabilities

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VM escape happens when an attacker with access to a virtual machine breaks out of this isolated environment and gains access to the host system or other VMs running on the same host.

• could allow an attacker to gain control of all virtual machines running on a single physical server

Example

Cloudburst vulnerability in VMware’s virtual machine display function.

• officially designated as CVE-2009-1244
• discovered in 2009 in VMware’s ESX Server
• vulnerability in the virtual machine display function allowed a guest operating system to execute code on the host operating system

Resource reuse

• VMs are frequently created, used, and then deleted
• If the resources are not properly sanitized between each use
  • sensitive data could be leaked between virtual machines
• mitigate by:
  • Thorough data sanitization practices
  • ensuring data encryption throughout the lifecycle
  • implementing robust encryption key management
  • cloud provider security features and best practices