Thousands of virtual appliances are being distributed with known, exploitable, and fixable security flaws and often on outdated operating systems. Organizations depend on virtual appliances for securing cloud workloads, firewalls, secure gateways, and encryption.
To help the cloud security industry keep pace with demand, Orca Security released the “2020 State of Virtual Appliance Security Report,” which analyzed 2,218 virtual appliance images from 540 software vendors for known vulnerabilities, to identify risks and provide an objective assessment score and ranking. As the enterprise migrates to the cloud at a rapid pace, the security of virtual appliances has fallen dramatically behind.
In Episode S2E19, we talk with Yoav Alon, Chief Technology Officer at Orca Security, and examine what went into creating this report and some of its top findings.
Yoav is a security veteran recognized on Microsoft Security Response Center’s Most Valuable Research List (BlackHat 2019). Prior to joining Orca Security, he was a Unit 8200 researcher and team leader, a chief architect at Hyperwise Security, and a security architect at Check Point Software Technologies. Yoav enjoys hunting for Linux and Windows vulnerabilities in his spare time.
Steven Bowcut is an award-winning journalist covering cyber and physical security. He is an editor and writer for Brilliance Security Magazine as well as other security and non-security online publications. Follow and connect with Steve on Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn.