Securing Virtualised Environments

Starts: Wednesday 21 April 2010, 8:00AM

Finishes: Wednesday 21 April 2010, 10:00AM

Venue: Westpac, Westpac Place, 275 Kent Street Sydney Australia

Topic: Securing Virtualized Environments - A snapshot of where we are at with virtualisation security will be provided - the risks and threats, how they are being addressed, and some ideas on how to prepare for future cloud computing initiatives. The objective of this meeting is to demystify the approach to securing virtualised environment.

Speakers: John Reeman, Technical Director, Nebulas Solutions and Murray Goldschmidt, COO Sense of Security

John Reeman has been involved in IT Security for the last 18 Years. For the last 9 years he has been responsible for the technical strategy and vision of Nebulas and has been at the forefront of research into virtualization security. He is also a contributing author to the Centre of Internet Security (CIS) benchmarks for VMware ESX 3.x hardening guidelines as well as developing his own technology in the form of VMinformer which is a security assessment tool for virtual environments.

Synopsis for John's presentation: "The Truths and Myths of Virtualization Security"

This talk takes you through where virtualization security is today. Focusing around VMware, although the topics discussed apply to any virtualization platform vendor, we look at the areas of risk, uncover some myths. We look at architecture and design, management and operations, what you should be doing, and dangers to be aware of. Lastly we look at the importance of monitoring and continual assessment in the dynamic world of virtualization. This talk will include a demo of VMinformer to highlight the need for assessing the security of virtual environments.

Murray Goldschmidt is co-founder and Chief Operating Officer at Sense of Security, a leading Australian Information Security and Risk Management firm. He is an IT security specialist with over 10 years commercial IT experience. Along with a degree in Electrical Engineering, Murray is a Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP) and a Payment Card Industry Qualified Security Assessor (PCI QSA).

Synopsis for Murray Goldsmith's presentation:

Winning gold stars for cost savings and a real incentive for a wave of Green IT initiatives, virtualisation is no doubt an important technological advancement with many benefits. Moreover, this technology has also enabled true economies of scale and unlocked the cloud computing revolution. The uptake of virtualisation continues to climb and the growth is not immune to security challenges. Gartner predicts that through 2012, 60 percent of virtualised servers will be less secure than the physical servers they replace. Clearly there is a need for a comprehensive understanding of the security issues to enable successful deployments and a more secure environment to conduct business.

Many thanks to our sponsors:

AISA thanks Trend Micro for sponsoring this meeting.

AISA thanks Westpac for providing the venue for our Sydney Branch meetings in 2011.

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