In response to the rapid adoption of virtualization technology by organizations from around the globe, Kaspersky Lab today announced a solution built from the ground-up to protect evolving corporate IT infrastructures from the ever-growing threat of malware.
Developed from the same code-base as Kaspersky Lab’s endpoint security products, Kaspersky Security for Virtualization helps avoid resource-drain associated with security services that are typically bolted on.
The virtual appliance model ensures that all virtual machines receive the same level of protection, regardless of when the machines were created, or if they have been offline for extended periods of time. Kaspersky Lab says there are no “Instant-On” gaps for virtual machines that haven’t been used for extended periods of time and no “AV Storms” that hog network resources while updating virtual machines as its anti-malware functions are offloaded to a centralized virtual appliance. By freeing up virtual machine resources, the solution can optimize performance, reduce hardware costs and energy consumption, and provide detailed logging of security tasks to satisfy compliance auditing requirements.
“Many small to midsized enterprises, with between 500 and 5,000 seats, have different mixes of virtualization within their infrastructure,” said Christian Christensen, Program Vice President, Security Products and Services Group at IDC. “Lots of these businesses are using security practices best-suited for physical environments, such as agent-based anti-virus scanners, and may not be reaping the full benefits of their virtualization investment.”
Through the integration with VMware vShield™ Endpoint, the centrally managed Kaspersky Security for Virtualization can automatically detect virtualized servers and desktops on the network, delivering files to the Kaspersky Lab client for real-time anti-malware scans. Integration with VMware vCenter™ allows efficient deployment, automatic protection of new virtual machines, mapping of both logical and physical computing structures, and automatic security updates, all managed by the Kaspersky Security Center administration console.
The initial rollout of Kaspersky Security for Virtualization only supports virtual environments running on VMWare, but the company plans to expand support to other virtualization platforms soon. “This is only the beginning for Kaspersky Lab’s virtual security offerings as we expand our functionality across all popular virtualization platforms,” said Petr Merkulov, Chief Product Officer at Kaspersky Lab.
In addition to expanding to support to other virtualization platforms, Merkulov says Kaspersky Lab will bring increased functionality to its VMware-focused solutions. “This is only the beginning of our partnership, as we plan to develop more functionality with the VMware API, along with the ability to isolate any infected virtual machines before malware can spread across the network,” Merkulov said.
Scheduled for general availability on April 16, 2012, Kaspersky said it plans to demo the new virtualization security technology at both the VMware Partner Exchange Conference in Las Vegas and the upcoming RSA Conference in San Francisco.
The company, most well known for its consumer focused anti-virus products, has expanded its portfolio of mobile and business security solutions, and now has made another major move into the corporate and enterprise security space with the announcement of Kaspersky Security for Virtualization.
Last week at an event hosted by Kaspersky Lab in Cancun, Mexico, the company disclosed that its revenue for 2011 topped $612 million, up 14 percent from 2010, adding that the company planned to stay private for the foreseeable future.