The Cloudcast - Eps.42 - “Bromium: MicroVirtualization for Enabling MacroSecuritization”
Date: June 20, 2012
Guests: Simon Crosby (@simoncrosby, Co-Founder/CTO at Bromium), Tal Klein (@VirtualTal, Director Janitorial Services)
Description: Aaron and Brian talk with Simon Crosby, (@simoncrosby, Co-Founder/CTO) and Tal Klein (@VirtualTal) from Bromium, about the launch of their micro-virtualization platform and how this intends to change the security of end-points for the Enterprise and Governments.
Topic 1 - There has been lots of speculation about what Bromium is announcing. We’ve gotten some tidbits about virtualization and security, and a healthy dose of mythology and stories of great wars via your blog. So what problem is Bromium attempting to solve?
Topic 2 - Can you trust devices or users? Why can't they be trusted if those devices (laptops, tablets, etc.) have ever been outside the corporate network?
Topic 3 - Why doesn't virtualizing desktops (eg. VDI) help solve the security, vulnerability problem?
Topic 4 - Given that zero-day attacks will continue to happen ("bad guys"), how do you create a security system that doesn't rely on "known profiles" of attacks and malware. Why does the "halting problem" apply to this new way of thinking?
Topic 5 - Should companies use multiple VMs (personal and corporate) to separate these domains?
Topic 6 - What value does Bromium bring to an IT department, and can it potentially help improve the economics of 70-80% of budget being spent on maintenance instead of forward-looking activities for the business?
Topic 7 - Is it possible to retrain users to be more aware of security and bad behaviors on networks?
Topic 8 - How does the "principle of least privilege" apply to Bromium technology and why is it critical to keep the Bromium code simplified?
Side topics that were all woven into this discussion in one way or another.
- You’ve been a leading open-source proponent from your work on Xen, and said that security needs to be open-source for proper industry review. Is Bromium open-source?
- Does this leverage the work you did with Xen, or did you have to start-over on the hypervisor to leverage hardware?
- This sounds like a much different approach to end-point security than traditional A/V (anti-virus), but can you give us some use-cases about how this is BETTER, not just a different approach?
- End-point management is typically about agents and distribution frameworks. How does Bromium handle this for IT organizations?
- How does a product like this get deployed and how does a customer know they are more secure?
- Is this purely a PC/Laptop solution, or can it also leverage the hardware/software going into smart-phones and tablets? How would this fit into a BYOD environment?
- Does Bromium apply to VDI, TS or Streaming-Desktop environments?
- Security is a strange value-proposition. It’s been said that the average company spends more on coffee than security, and most people think security is somewhat of a never-fixed challenge. How do you explain the economics of solving this challenge to a business?
- Is this a pure-play business (sell directly to customer, or resell through channels), or does this require distributon/OEM partners (eg. one of funding partners is Intel Capital)?
