According to her research Kaspersky Lab to IT professionals around the world, businesses are now paying more attention to virtualization security concerns. However, some traditional doubts about the need for specialized security software for virtualization environments still exist. The results of the survey also show that balancing performance and security requirements is still a challenge challenge for businesses. Still, the use of traditional security methods to protect virtual terminals appears to be a major cause of performance problems, according to the opinions of IT executives.
The results of the research, included in report "IT Security Risks for Virtualization 2014 "from Kaspersky Lab, showed that 62% of IT executives in Europe agree that security should be one of the first thoughts when installing a virtual infrastructure. It is not surprising that the security of virtual environments is priority, whereas 47% also agreed that virtual environments are becoming increasingly important as a key part of business information infrastructure. As more and more businesses rely on virtual infrastructure for their core day-to-day operations, protecting the virtual infrastructure becomes more important.
However, according to the survey, companies worry that by ensuring their virtual environment is sacrificing performance. In fact, 33% of executives from Europe agreed that adding security solutions to a virtual infrastructure makes it slower. Reducing performance is another major concern for businesses, with 46% reporting that the performance of virtualized servers is vital to the business.
Using inappropriate tools slows down virtual infrastructure
Performance and security are considered to be top requirements for a virtual infrastructure, but security is often at the expense of performance. However, survey data highlight the main reasons for slowing the performance of virtual networks:
1) 41% of respondents believe that "Virtual environments can be adequately protected by conventional security solutions to protect natural systems."
2) 18% believes that "The existing ones anti-malware solutions provide better protection and performance than other specialized solutions ".
These data reveal a widespread perception, according to which, the traditional anti-malware programs, which are designed to secure physical terminals, provide sufficient protection for virtual ones networks. However, these figures also show that IT executives often do not justify the reduced virtual performance that these "natural" security solutions may entail. A wider understanding of the reduced performance caused by traditional "physical" security when applied to virtual machines can be the key to enhancing the security levels of virtual infrastructures around the world.
Study of the independent AV-Test Security Testing Body compared malware detection rates and system performance between traditional terminal security solutions and specialized solutions for virtualization environments, including Kaspersky Security for Virtualization. The study found that a traditional terminal security solution took much longer - in some cases almost twice as long - to process multiple virtual desktops, which started running almost simultaneously. This is a situation that IT officials face every day, every morning. It was also found that traditional security measures consumed 40-65% more system resources compared to Kaspersky Lab's specialized virtual security solution, when they had to protect multiple virtual devices in parallel.
More information is available on the dedicated Kaspersky Lab website for security in virtualization environments.
