Google launches “Shielded VMs” to protect cloud servers from rootkits, data theft

guest · Jul 25, 2018

Google launches “Shielded VMs” to protect cloud servers from rootkits, data theft
New features lock down VMs, verifying security at boot—and preventing hostile snapshot "migration."
July 25, 2018
https://arstechnica.com/information...otect-cloud-servers-from-rootkits-data-theft/

Using a cryptographically protected baseline measurement of the VM's image, the Shielded VMs feature—launched in beta today—provides a way of "tamper-proofing" virtual machines and alerting their owners to changes in their runtime state. Shielded VMs also make it possible to prevent a virtual machine from being booted in a different context than it was originally deployed in—in other words, preventing theft of VMs through "snap-shotting" or other duplication.
Locking things down
To fight this sort of attack, Shielded VMs use a combination of firmware-based UEFI Secure Boot and vTPM—a virtual Trusted Platform Module, which can generate and store "sealed" encryption keys.

Both Secure Boot and Measured Boot can help defend against rootkits that might execute during the operating system startup, as well as kernel-level malware. Measured Boot can also surface information about the integrity of VMs' runtime state through StackDriver, Google's virtual machine monitoring tool.

Google is working on a similar integrity-protection technology for its container environment, Google Kubernetes Engine.
Click to expand...

guest · Aug 6, 2018

Google Details Tech Built into Shielded VMs
August 06, 2018
https://www.darkreading.com/cloud/google-details-tech-built-into-shielded-vms/d/d-id/1332493

Google recently rolled out in beta specialized virtual machines, called Shielded VMs, so account holders on Google Cloud Platform (GCP) could run workloads without fear of running compromised code.

Now the company is publishing details on how Shielded VMs keep the cloud secure from attack vectors, including guest system firmware, guest OS via malicious guest-VM kernel or user-mode vulnerabilities, and malicious customer insiders tampering with guest VM images.

Shielded VMs come with security features to protect code in the cloud, which Google explains in a blog post released today by Nelly Porter, Google Cloud senior product manager, and Sergey Simakov, technical program manager for Google Cloud Security.
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