A Comparison of the Resiliency Against Attacks Between Virtualised Environments and Physical Environments

Abstract: Virtualisation is a technology that is more and more applied due to its advantages regarding cost and operation. It is often believed that it provides a better security for an IT environment since it enables centralisation of hardware. However, virtualisation changes an IT environment fundamentally and contains new vulnerabilities that must be considered. It is of interest to evaluate whether the belief that virtual environments provide a better security for an IT environment is true or not. In this project, the resiliency against attacks for physical environments and virtual environments is analysed to determine which one provides a higher resiliency and why. Therefore, the physical and digital attack surfaces of all entities are analysed to reveal the relevant vulnerabilities that could be exploited. Beside a theoretical research, a physical and a virtual environment have been established to test chosen attacks practically. The results show that virtual environments are less resilient than physical environments, especially to common attacks. This shows that virtualisation is still a technology that is new to many companies and the vulnerabilities it has must be taken seriously.