Today VMware has released the following new and updated security advisories:
VMSA-2018-0006 – vRealize Automation, vSphere Integrated Containers, and AirWatch Console updates address multiple security vulnerabilities
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Customers should review the security advisories and direct any questions to VMware Support.
As the first software-defined networking solution with a published STIG, VMware NSX meets the security hardening guidance required for installment on Department of Defense (DoD) networks. The VMware NSX STIG provides the technical security policies, requirements, and implementation details for applying security concepts to NSX. Agencies within the DoD and other Federal Agencies can now deploy NSX with the STIG guidelines to bring IT agility and security to the data center to help save both time and money.
For more details, see the company press release:
http://www.vmware.com/company/news/releases/vmw-newsfeed.Newly-Released-STIG-Validates-VMware-NSX-Meets-the-Security-Hardening-Guidance-Required-for-Installment-on-Department-of-Defense-%28DoD%29-Networks.2093065.html
Hello Everyone,
Today, VMware releases SCAP 1.3 draft spec compliant Open Source project for OVAL content editor. A couple of months back VMware released an SCAP compliance assessment and remediation app for FREE. The security and compliance community loved it and came back to us asking for an easier and simpler way to write OVAL assessment rules and generate XCCDF out of it instead of handcrafting the XMLs. We listened and responded!
Hello Everyone,
I am pleased to announce the availability of VMware STIG Compliance App. Using this app, you can assess, remediate and harden remote *NIX machines in line with STIG (Security Technical Implementation Guide) or any other security configuration benchmark. The app is available as a container image.
The app supports and requires configuration benchmark to be in SCAP 1.2 format and is capable of performing XCCDF or OVAL assessments. The app uses OpenSCAP as the assessment engine and Ansible as the action engine for performing remediation and hardening.
VMware is pleased to announce the availability of automated compliance assessment toolkit for Criminal Justice Information Services (CJIS) security policy in VMware vRealize Configuration Manager (VCM). The toolkit aligns with CJIS Security Policy version 5.3 and maps to 92 checks on various MS-Windows flavors. Using the toolkit on VCM, various law enforcement agencies such as state, local, federal, and international partners, can quickly assess Windows configuration and compare with CJIS Security Policy requirements. Additionally, you can remediate the infringements with an effort of a few clicks. Get the product sheet!
The VMware Center for Policy & Compliance (CP&C) team is pleased to announce the release of a compliance toolkit for blocking the ‘Get Windows 10’ application on all applicable machines.
Microsoft is set to release Windows 10 on July 29th, and will also be available as a free upgrade for applicable systems via the ‘Get Windows 10’ application. In the Enterprise environment, it is important to maintain control over your devices, and the ‘Get Windows 10’ application can cause quite a stir in the corporate environment. There is however relief for those Administrators who wish to smite the application from their environment to ensure that there are no unplanned upgrades.
The “Blocker for ‘Get Windows 10’ application” compliance template in VMware vRealize Configuration Manager (VCM) provides an option to quickly check and enforce remediation to prevent any unplanned upgrade of Windows. The enforcement checks and creates an registry key if needed, and then an registry value to disable the GWX application, which provides an option to upgrade the existing version of Windows.
VMware vRealize Configuration Manager is not limited to compliance. This solution supports configuration and compliance assessment of your Docker containers, *NIX, Windows and Virtual environments along with patching, change management and various other asset management and reporting capabilities. It also support other regulatory and industry accepted security benchmarks and guidelines such as HIPAA, PCIDSS, DISA, CIS, IRS, SOX, etc. If you have any questions about this solution, please post them here.
Thanks and Regards,
Aravind Kolipakkam
CISSP | CCSK | ITIL | MCSE | Security+
The VMware Center for Policy & Compliance (CP&C) team is pleased to announce the release of PCI DSS 3.1 compliance toolkits for VMware vSphere 6.0 and other platforms – Windows, *NIX, and VMware vSphere 5.5, 5.1 and 5.0 in VMware vCenter Configuration Manager (VCM). The toolkits consists of automated compliance rules to assess your environment against PCI DSS 3.1 requirements.
PCI Security Standards Council (PCI SSC) council quickly updated the standards from 3.0 to 3.1 in wake of SSL vulnerability on 15 Apr 2015. As per the announcement by the PCI council, the revision includes minor updates and clarifications, and addresses vulnerabilities within the Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) encryption protocol that can put payment data at risk. PCI DSS Version 3.1 is effective immediately following the publication, 15 Apr 2015. PCI DSS Version 3.0 will be retired on 30 June 2015.
The VMware Center for Policy & Compliance (CP&C) team is pleased to announce the release of VMware vSphere 6.0 Hardening Guide Compliance toolkit in VMware vCenter Configuration Manager (VCM). The toolkit consists of automated compliance rules to assess your VMware vSphere 6 based virtualized environments against the hardening guide. It covers 100% of the hardening guide recommendations.
The hardening guide has three risk profiles that group the recommendations based on the sensitivity of your environment. You can pick the compliance toolkits for respective risk profile or get all the rules at once and then make modifications to suit your sensitivity category.
As more of VMware’s customers look to run containerized applications, some have raised the question of securing containers in their environments. In partnership with the Center for Internet Security (CIS), Docker and others, VMware has developed a security configuration benchmark for Docker containers that you can download from here.
In all, six parties came together to develop the benchmark — covering 84 recommendations — in just 12 weeks. The aim of this security benchmark, like any other hardening guide or security documentation for any other vendor or product, is to highlight configuration parameters and other secure deployment considerations. It is designed as a definitive reference guide for customers wanting to understand how to securely provision containers to Linux OSes in production.
CIS is an independent organization focused on enhancing the cyber security readiness and response of public and private sector entities, with a commitment to excellence through collaboration. At CIS, security configuration benchmarks are created using a consensus review process comprised of subject matter experts. The benchmark is a result of collaboration between various industry experts, a team of enthusiastic folks who worked closely to develop and corral a consensus set of guidance as well as leveraging resources such as blog posts, articles, internet resources, and Docker documentation. CIS facilitated the development efforts and guided us throughout the benchmark development process. Each recommendation was thoroughly vetted, tested and endorsed by the consensus team consisting of folks from CIS, VMware, Docker, Cognitive Scale, International Securities Exchange and Rakuten.
However, having just a security benchmark is not enough. Customers also need a mechanism to evaluate containerized workloads against the benchmark and provide compliance visibility and reporting. The solution should also be able to assess diverse workloads hosted on heterogeneous Linux distributions.
VMware has developed such a solution within VMware vRealize Configuration Manager. It is designed as a compliance toolkit, and is the FIRST of its kind to assess containerized workloads against the CIS benchmark. The tool provides compliance health status for each Docker container, image, container host, Docker daemon, etc., against each automatable recommendation from CIS benchmark.
vRealize Configuration Manager covers 100% of the automatable recommendations in the benchmark – addressed here in depth – and even some that are not directly automatable. You can get a detailed listing of the rules available in the VMware solution in the product sheet attached here.
Let’s dive into a comprehensive overview of the solution.
VMware is proud to announce it’s associate membership in the Software Assurance Forum for Excellence in Code (SAFECode). The forum is exclusively dedicated to increasing trust in information and communications technology products and services through the advancement of effective software assurance methods. SAFECode is a global, industry-led effort to identify and promote best practices for developing and delivering more secure and reliable software and services.
Please see the following CTO blog post by Iain Mulholland for more details about this exciting news.