is surfing through a virtual machine can increase security?

hydepark2734 · 01-31-2012, 04:49 PM

let's say i installed some variant of bsd/solaris which i consider to be very secure.
i know i can configure linux to be as secured, but i do tend to lower the security on my box's for certain reasons.
so i thought i can have bsd as the host and linux as guest.
is this actually do anything for my security or since i connect to the internet, i'm still exposed to being hacked some way or another?
is there any advantage trying to do this?

rkelsen · 01-31-2012, 04:57 PM

Due to the 'sandboxed' nature of virtual machines, they are inherently more secure.

If you are attacked by some means, the attacker can only damage the virtual machine.

Virtualisation is growing in popularity for this and many other reasons.

But if you're running BSD as your host OS, what are you afraid of? Is this on a server?

orgcandman · 01-31-2012, 05:06 PM

Hopefully, I can educate at least one more person with this post.

While browsing in a virtual machine IS probably better practice than using your host machine, the host is NOT immune to damage.

Immunity's CLOUDBURST from 2007 is the easiest one I can reference, but there continue to be vulnerabilities (and exploits) which target virtualization software and allow malicious code to escape and exploit the host. Heck, the second hit on google for "exploit vmware" is less than a year old, and details a host-client sharing vulnerability (note: that's just an example; cloudburst doesn't require any sharing).

Just my $0.02

-Aaron

hydepark2734 · 01-31-2012, 05:17 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by rkelsen

Due to the 'sandboxed' nature of virtual machines, they are inherently more secure.

If you are attacked by some means, the attacker can only damage the virtual machine.

Virtualisation is growing in popularity for this and many other reasons.

But if you're running BSD as your host OS, what are you afraid of? Is this on a server?

Nope. my laptop. which is something i use on the outside world.
i think what i'm trying to figure out is if VM is better practice to protect my privacy and data while surfing some unknown network like the university i go to which is filled with computer science kids who's trying to do god knows what (i know, sound like an over the top scenario, but you can't be too sure about this stuff).

rkelsen · 01-31-2012, 05:37 PM

In that case, turn off all outward-facing services and set up a firewall on your machine. This, plus the fact that you're on BSD should be more than enough to protect you from script kiddies.