Virtualization has increased IT productivity, efficiency, agility, and responsiveness. Compared to physical environments, it has greater business continuity and disaster recovery capabilities. However, this also comes with a new set of challenges as server admins and storage admins have access to these VM files which can be misused and go undetected. If any of the VMs is an Active Directory domain controller, the malicious admin can use readily available brute force techniques to crack the passwords in the Active Directory database ultimately giving them access to everything else. Attack vectors like these are real threats for all virtualization platforms.
Microsoft introduced Shielded Virtual Machine in Windows Server 2016 by extending virtual machines the same security capabilities that physical machines have enjoyed for years. For more details refer to the Microsoft Shielded Virtual Machine article.
We recommend using Microsoft’s Shielded Virtual Machine feature to protect against root-kits, boot-kits, and kernel-level malware.
Protecting Microsoft’s Shielded Virtual Machine using Backup Exec
Veritas Backup Exec provides seamless protection of Microsoft’s Shielded Virtual Machine running on a guarded host with secure boot and bit-locker encryption.
While Microsoft has continued to focus on the security of virtual machines with enhancements in Windows Server releases, Veritas also shares Microsoft’s focus on securing VMs by not just allowing for protection of shielded VMs but also protecting the storage where the shielded VMs are backed up.
For more details and best practices on Shielded VM protection refer to the Backup Exec Agent for Microsoft Hyper-V guide.
Refer to the Increasing Ransomware Resilience white paper for protection against external threats.
Refer to the Backup Exec software compatibility list for the supported Windows Server versions.
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