VMware experts please

I have always thought that using a VM isolates completely from the real machine, and cross infections rarely if ever happen. I must have been mistaken in that understanding, but I am amazed how wrong I could have been.

I was looking around websites that perhaps I shouldnt have been, using a Win7 VM machine with IE.
The Win 7 VM is a basic clean install with nothing added. Suddenly, Eset Nod32 AV popped up from the REAL machine saying the website that I was connecting to on the VM had been blocked and flagged as dangerous.

If this is the case, that Eset from the Real machine is monitoring the VM, then surely bad stuff from the VM could just as easily infect the real machine.

Maybe I am missing something obvious, but it was a shock to see that Eset was active on the VM, even though it is not installed there.

Any help appreciated.

 

One similar discussion already here: https://www.wilderssecurity.com/threads/virus-inside-of-a-virtual-machine.354900/

ESET is scanning http traffic created by vbox.exe. If it finds anything it jumps in. If you don't want to scan network traffic by your RT antivirus you can do two things:
1. switching from NAT network to Bridged network in Virtualbox or
2. disable http scanning for Vbox.exe in ESET.

Both options will prevent ESET from scanning that network traffic.

 

I agree with the previous two responses.

Regarding "I have always thought that using a VM isolates completely from the real machine," you may want to take a look at VirtualBox: better to use NAT or Bridged Adapter for a malware test machine?

 

The above comments have given me plenty of help and research to be done. These things had just never occurred to me.

I appreciate all the help. Thanks to you all.