How secure is a virtual machine?

[Bubo]

In terms of avoiding getting spyware and the like on your main os, how good are these vmware/virtualbox setups where you use the virtual os as a browser sandbox? Is your main os totally immune from anything whilst using the browser in the virtual os?

 

[Memphis]

Yes.

 

[Mr-White]

linux based so yeah

MW

 

[Bubo]

What if you install a win xp virtual os within vista?

 

[Burnsy2023]

What if you install a win xp virtual os within vista?

Same rules applies.

 

[Pho]

It's not 100% safe, but it's pretty close.

There's always the chance someone could find an exploit which allows them to gain access to the main machine, but the likely hood is slim - and there's little to gain anyway.

 

[malef!c]

Like Pho says its not 100% certain but it is near as damn it

Virtualbox and VMWare use the same hard drive and memory as your main OS so some one has the chance of finding a vulnerability somewhere to cross from the virtual to the 'real' OS.

Whether or not it will happen - who knows

 

[eXor]

If the host and guest are totally different operating systems, any malware that managed to bridge the gap would be like

 

[D D Danneh]

Don't the anti-virus companies use VM's to test viruses and how to remove them?

 

[Burnsy2023]

Don't the anti-virus companies use VM's to test viruses and how to remove them?

Most likely.

 

[theheyes]

Just remember that the virtual machine acts like any other host on the network so say for example you acquire conficker for a laugh and your main OS is unpatched and not running any security software you are most definitely not invulnerable.

In regards to targeting the virtualization software itself the threat is very, very low but not non-existent. It's very easily for malware to detect whether it's running in a VM or not so maybe we'll see more as virtualization gets more popular.