Almost three quarters (73%) of companies globally are relying on standard endpoint security-class solutions to protect their virtual environments, which could lead to reduced performance and create an excessive load on their systems – with one-third of businesses (34%) unaware that specialised security products exist.
According to the findings of a Kaspesky Lab survey, only 27% of companies use security solutions which are specifically adapted for virtual environments. Of these, nearly half (48%) use agent-based solutions. Specialised agentless and light-agent solutions are still uncommon, and are used in just 35% and 15% of cases respectively.
In using Endpoint Security-class solutions on virtual machines, a number of issues can arise. For example, anti-malware scanning and updating databases on multiple machines simultaneously can have a negative effect on the quality of service, create excessive loads on the infrastructure, or even lead to service failure.
To prevent this from happening, specialised solutions can be used that minimise the load on each protected machine. This involves the heaviest components of the solutions, namely the scanning engine and database updates, being moved to a dedicated virtual machine – a security virtual appliance (SVA). This dramatically reduces the impact of resources on endpoint desktops, and prevents problematic situations of peak loads on the entire infrastructure; through centralised queue management and optimised scans.
Alexander Onishchenko, product manager at Kaspersky Lab, comments: “Compared to traditional endpoint security, most customers of specialised solutions benefit from lower resource consumption and enhanced performance, but this is not the only reason.
“In large installations, the ease of management that accompanies an agentless approach is the top factor, and when it comes to securing VDI environments, a light agent approach becomes the only way to achieve high performance without compromising the security.”