Kaspersky Lab Protects Enterprise and SME's Virtualized Environments with New Kaspersky Security for Virtualization

The launch coincides with the opening of the first cutting edge SEA Kaspersky Knowledge Centre in Malaysia

PETALING JAYA, May 15, 2012 - Kaspersky Lab, a leading developer of secure content and threat management solutions, announced the release of its latest security technology to ensure businesses will “Be Ready for What’s Next.” Kaspersky Security for Virtualization – built from the ground-up by Kaspersky Lab’s internal team of security experts – is focused on protecting evolving corporate IT infrastructures from malware and cybercriminals.

Virtualization creates tremendous business and IT benefits for organizations globally, but if left unprotected these platforms may become a weak link for cybercriminals to exploit. (From L-R): Ms Gun Suk Ling, Corporate Sales Director, APAC, Kaspersky Lab and Mr Jimmy Fong, Channel Sales Director, SEA, Kaspersky Lab cutting the ribbon to mark the official launch of the first SEA Kaspersky Knowledge Center in Malaysia

Virtualization has become one of the necessities in the current ever-growing business environment. Companies implement virtualization to reduce cost while at the same time improving performance. The growing trend in virtualization however is not supported adequately on security issues, as security solutions for virtualization are not growing as fast as the virtualization industry itself.

“There are more than 70,000 new unique malware found in a day, and malware threats on the virtual environment are rapidly increasing from one malware every minute to one malware every second. Cybercriminals have clearly identified the virtualized environment as an easy oppotunity to target the B2B segment and it is an alarming trend,» said Ms. Gun Suk Ling, Corporate Sales Director, APAC, during the launch session of Kaspersky Security for Virtualization (KSV) at the SEA Kaspersky Knowledge Centre.
(From L-R): Mr Jimmy Fong, Channel Sales Director, SEA, Kaspersky Lab, Ms Gun Suk Ling, Corporate Sales Director, APAC, Kaspersky Lab and Mr Jimmy Low, Security Consultant, SEA, Kaspersky Lab at the official launch of Kaspersky Security for Virtualization.

As one of the leading security developers, Kaspersky noticed the issue and offers among the best solution for companies implementing virtualization, Kaspersky Security for Virtualization (KSV).

“In the South East Asian region, Malaysia is among the countries where virtualization is experiencing positive growth. This makes Malaysia a market with great potential for KSV,” Ms Gun said.

“Kaspersky conducted focus group surveys in April 2012 covering close to 200 companies from various industries. Findings from the survey revealed the needs and requirements of companies implementing Virtual Environments. More than half of the companies surveyed (54%) indicated that going Virtualized is critical to them, yet of this number only half of them implemented security in the virtualized environment. For those that have not implemented virtual environments, a significant number (30%) indicated that they will implement some form of Virtual environment within the next 12 months,” Ms Gun said in highlighting the potential for growth in security solutions for virtualized environments.

Kaspersky Security for Virtualization is delivered as a virtual security appliance that integrates with VMware vShield™ Endpoint to provide agent-less, anti-malware security based upon Kaspersky Lab’s advanced anti-malware engine. Developed from the same code-base as Kaspersky Lab’s award-winning line of endpoint security products, Kaspersky Security for Virtualization avoids the needless complexity and resource-drain associated with security programs that typically “bolt-on” acquired technology for virtual environments. With Kaspersky Lab, customers have a single, unified management platform for their virtual, physical and mobile environments.

KSV also has advanced anti-malware engine that provides superior detection and effective malware remediation. Understanding that companies implement virtualization to reach efficiency, KSV efficiency delivers protection in an agent-less form with a centralized anti-malware engine and signature database. This ensures that there is no redundancy or duplication of engine and database.

KSV virtual appliance is deployed on a host, it provides automatic and up-to-date protection to all guest VMs/ease of security, addressing the deployment and compliance issues at the same time. By tightly integrating with VMware’s platform and tools, KSV’s protection seamlessly follows a VM as it moves from one host to another and there is no disruption to the protection status and security settings of the VM.

In addition, KSV gives IT professionals the flexibility to configure and apply different security settings to selected virtual machine groups. In short, with Kaspersky’s seamless management solution, companies can acquire virtualization at a pace that suits their organization’s unique needs.

By harnessing the detection power of Kaspersky’s anti-malware engine, as well as the unified manageability of Kaspersky Security Center, Kaspersky Security for Virtualization effectively protects virtualized environments and provides IT professionals with the unified management and visibility they need.

Kaspersky Security for Virtualization is managed using Kaspersky’s universal management console, Kaspersky Security Center. By using the same management console as other Kaspersky endpoint security applications, Kaspersky provides a consistent way for IT security professionals to manage and express security policies across both physical and virtual environments. Through Kaspersky Security Center, IT security professionals get a single-pane view of all protected machines. The dashboard provides views of protection status at a glance to allow administrators to take swift action when issues arise.

In addition to plug-and-play compatibility with Kaspersky Lab’s own endpoint security offerings, Kaspersky Security for Virtualization seamlessly integrates with VMware vShield™ Endpoint Security, providing straightforward protection for virtual data centers, virtualized servers and desktops. Using VMware vShield™ Endpoint, the centrally managed Kaspersky Security for Virtualization automatically detects every virtual machine on the network, delivering files to the Kaspersky Lab client for real-time anti-malware scans. This integration with VMware vCenter™ means straightforward deployment, automatic protection of new virtual machines, mapping of both logical and physical computing structures, and automatic security updates, all delivering increased consolidation ratios for customers and managed by the Kaspersky Security Center administration console - “a single pane of glass.”

«Kaspersky partners with VMWare, as they have the largest market share of VM users. KSV integration with VMware gives customers the ability to deploy Kaspersky Lab’s industry-leading security technology through their trusted VMware infrastructure.. We plan to develop more functionality with the VMware API, along with the ability to isolate any infected virtual machines before malware can spread across the network. Our plan is to expand our functionality across all popular virtualization platforms,” Ms Gun added.

The event coincided with the official opening of the first Kaspersky Knowledge Centre for the SEA region that is based in Malaysia. The centre is designed with cutting-edge facilities for product training for Kaspersky’s technical and sales teams to familiarize customers and prospects with award-winning Kaspersky Lab products in the brand’s on-going efforts to deliver better technical support to customers.

The knowledge centre also serves as a hub for solution showcases, proof of concepts, solution deployment simulations, and trouble shooting as well as product compatibility simulations for both the technical team and end customers.

According to Mr. Jimmy Fong, Channel Sales Director, SEA, Kaspersky Lab, Malaysia was an ideal location for the regional Kaspersky Knowledge Centre as the country is economically and socially stable with sound infrastructure to meet the brand's needs. He remarked that the country’s multi-lingual and multi-cultural population where English, Malay and Mandarin are widely spoken make for smooth communications across more countries in the region.

“With the introduction of our regional Kaspersky Knowledge Centre, Kaspersky Lab is set to extend our support and service to the next level and will be even better equipped to meet our customers’ expectations,” Mr. Fong said.