Tripwire Announces Free Utility to Check Configurations and Improve Security of VMware ESX Hypervisor Deployments

Market Wire, June, 2008

Tripwire, a leader in configuration assessment and change auditing for virtual environments, today announced the availability of Tripwire ConfigCheck(TM), a free utility that quickly assesses configuration settings for the VMware ESX hypervisor and recommends steps to take to ensure even greater security.

Tripwire ConfigCheck provides an immediate assessment of the configurations of a VMware ESX hypervisor, comparing them against VMware hardening security guidelines, which are best practice recommendations for optimal security in virtual environments, and then providing remediation instructions if any are needed. With Tripwire ConfigCheck customers gain immediate visibility into risks that might exist in their virtual environment due to misconfiguration and fixes any improper settings that could present future risk.

"Like the physical world, most security vulnerabilities in the virtual world will be introduced through misconfiguration and mismanagement of the technology," says Gartner Vice President and Gartner Fellow Neil MacDonald. "While existing tools may be used to assess the proper configuration of virtualized workloads, in many cases these don't work to assess the proper configuration of the virtualization layer itself. Ideally, a single, consistent process and tool would be used to assess the proper configuration of both physical and virtual workloads, including the virtualization layer."

"Two of the most important security issues customers should focus on are misconfiguration and patching," said Raghu Raghuram, vice president, products and solutions, VMware. "With VMware Update Manager which we introduced earlier this year, we have simplified the management of our customers' Virtual Infrastructure by automating the deployment of patches and updates. Tripwire ConfigCheck now adds to that capability by providing customers with a tool to proactively compare their VMware configurations with proven, hardening guidelines developed using best practices from the most business-critical VMware Infrastructure deployments."

"As enterprises move their critical applications from physical to VMware virtualized infrastructures, they are looking for solutions that will help improve the security of their systems. Yet, many existing toolsets for the enterprise don't adequately address virtual infrastructure," said Dan Schoenbaum, senior vice president, marketing and corporate development, Tripwire. "Because organizations need specific tools to automate and assess the unique configurations within virtual environments, Tripwire has introduced VMware hardening guidelines within Tripwire ConfigCheck, a free utility that enables IT to proactively avoid configuration errors, a requirement to maintain a trusted and secure state on their ESX hypervisor."

Tripwire ConfigCheck is available for free and can be downloaded at www.tripwire.com/configcheck . Additional information can be found at www.vmware.com/go/configcheck .

About Tripwire, Inc.

Tripwire helps over 6,000 enterprises worldwide reduce security risk, attain compliance and increase operational efficiency throughout their virtual and physical environments. Using Tripwire's industry-leading configuration assessment and change auditing solutions, organizations successfully achieve and maintain IT configuration control. Tripwire is headquartered in Portland, Ore. with offices worldwide. http://www.tripwire.com/

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