Section 15.135 Virtualisation and Containerisation

Question 1

Virtualisation

Answer 1

Powerful technology that allows for emulation of servers, each with its own OS within a virtual machine

Question 2

Containerisation

Answer 2

Lightweight alternative, encapsulating apps with their OS environment

Key Benefits
● Efficiency and Speed
● Portability
● Scalability
● Isolation
● Consistency

In simpe terms containerisation is a method of running application in isolated user spaces called containers. These containers are seperated from each other but share the host system OS Kernel. Each container includes the application and all its dependencies but shares the OS and usually the binaries and the libaries from the host machine

Question 3

Containerisation Technologies

Answer 3

■ Docker, Kubernetes, Red Hat OpenShift are popular containerisation platforms

■ Revolutionised application deployment in cloud environments

Question 4

Hypervisors

Answer 4

Virtual machines operate on a platform know as a Hypervisor which manages the distribution of the physical se4rvers resources such as the proccessor, meory and hard disk space amongst the VM

Question 5

Two Types of Hypervisors

Type 1 (Bare Metal)

Answer 5

Runs directly on hardware and functions similarly to an operating system (e.g., Microsifts Hyper-V, Citrix’s XenServer, VMware’s ESXi and vSphere)

Type 1 hypervisor is faster and efficient than a type 2 hypervisor

Question 6

Two Types of Hypervisors

Type 2 (Hosted)

Answer 6

Operates within a standard OS such as Windows, Mac or Linux

for example VirtualBox, VMware)

Type 1 hypervisor is faster and efficient than a type 2 hypervisor

Question 7

Virtualisation Vulnerabilities

Virtual Machine (VM) Escape

Answer 7

Attackers break out of isolated VMs to access the hypervisor

Attackers can migrate from hypervisor to another service - they are difficult to conduct

Question 8

Virtualisation Vulnerabilities

Privilege Elevation

Answer 8

Unauthorised elevation to higher-level users such as root or administator

Catastrophic is attacker can perform this on the hypervisor itself

Question 9

Virtualisation Vulnerabilities

Live VM Migration

Answer 9

Attacker captures unencrypted data between servers

When a VM needs to move from one physical host to another

Question 10

Virtualisation Vulnerabilities

Resource Reuse

Answer 10

Improper clearing of resources may expose sensitive data

Concept in computing where systems resouces like memory or processing power are resused

Question 11

Securing Virtual Machines

Answer 11

■ Regularly update OS, applications, and apply security patches

■ Install antivirus solutions and software firewalls

■ Use strong passwords and implement security policies

■ Secure the hypervisor with manufacturer-released patches

■ Limit VM connections to physical machines and isolate infected VMs

■ Distribute VMs among multiple servers to prevent resource exhaustion

■ Monitor VMs to prevent “Virtualisation Sprawl”

■ Enable encryption of VM files for data safety and confidentiality