Plank You Very Much

VCF Hardening Slides from VMware Explore 2024

August 29, 2024 by Bob Plankers

Midjourney-generated image of a man standing in water looking at a city skyline with stars above

A big thanks to absolutely all the friendly folks that were in my sessions this year at VMware Explore Las Vegas. I promised the folks in my VCF hardening session (VCFT1616LV) a copy of the slides so you’d stop taking photos. Sorry they’re a little late, to be honest I forgot, then my copy of Acrobat needed reinstalling. It’s always something! The recordings are also up on the free on-demand video library for VMware Explore, too. VCFB1201LV – Three Cornerstones to Enable a Cyber-Resilient Private Cloud(Monday morning with Belu de Arbelaiz and Bhanu Vemula) VCFB1440LV – All About vSphere 8(Tuesday morning with Dave Morera) VCFT1616LV – Hardening and Securing VCF(Monday …

Build a VM Template for RHEL 9

August 6, 2024August 6, 2024 by Bob Plankers

Midjourney rendering of Linux VM Templates

While anyone can create a VM template, only a few know tips and tricks for making a reliable, small, and secure VM template on VMware vSphere and VMware Cloud Foundation using Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9. Those tips & tricks are below! Prerequisites To succeed while following these instructions you will need: Create a New VM First, we need a fresh VM. Make the new VM the latest virtual hardware version you can. See “Upgrade VM Hardware Versions” for more discussion on this. Choose the right operating system. In this case, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9 is in the list. I create all my template VMs as 2 CPU, 4 …

Thoughts on CVE-2024-37085 & VMSA-2024-0013

August 2, 2024August 1, 2024 by Bob Plankers

Midjourney AI rendition of what cybersecurity and ransomware is, with a silhouette of a person in the middle of a lot of colored, blocky paint smears

Many of you may recognize that I work for Broadcom and handle a lot of VMware security, compliance, and what I like to call “operational resilience” topics. However, these are my thoughts on this matter with CVE-2024-37085, done on my own time and site, and do not reflect Broadcom’s stance. In fact, Broadcom’s stance, like VMware’s before it, is always: apply the patches or the workaround in the VMSA as your organization requires. This is good advice, if a bit terse. Lack of verbosity isn’t unique to Broadcom; no vendor can have a more nuanced stance because your environment is unique, and the context of your environment matters deeply. If …

VMware vSphere Patching Best Practices

August 2, 2024July 17, 2024 by Bob Plankers

Midjourney AI depiction of a metamorphosis and change, a painting of hundreds of butterflies fluttering in blue, orange, red, and yellow

Patching and updating VMware vSphere 8 is a LOT easier than it used to be, and has a lot less risk with the advent of vCenter Reduced Downtime Update and the creation of an internal LVM snapshot on the VCSA. That said, this is a collection of some VMware vSphere “patching best practices” that tend to make patching a smoother and more successful experience. Some of these ideas seem obvious, but in large environments things change without proper communications to downstream teams. When you assume nothing, and verify things before proceeding, you have a much more successful experience. Preparation Ensure Access to VCSA Root and SSO Administrator Accounts Ensure that …

Information Security Concepts

July 28, 2024July 16, 2024 by Bob Plankers

Midjourney AI depiction of VMware Security Hardening, blocky painting in shades of blue that evokes rain, with a person in white in the middle under a white umbrella.

Understanding information security concepts not only enables efficient communication within organizations but also promotes understanding among different groups. Moreover, these information security concepts improve system design by highlighting areas of consideration. Authentication Authentication, a fundamental information security concept, proves that a person or application is genuine, thereby verifying their identity. It employs one or more of three primary methods, or factors: what you know, what you are, and what you have. “What you know” encompasses passwords, personal identification numbers (PINs), passphrases, and other secrets. However, this type of authentication is not strong on its own and is typically paired with another authentication factor. “What you are” involves biometric authentication methods, …

What is Zero Trust?

July 28, 2024July 16, 2024 by Bob Plankers

Zero Trust means “trust no device and trust no user.” It constantly re-evaluates access for every user and system. All devices and user identities undergo continuous multifactor verification. This approach enhances security by minimizing the attack surface and reducing the impact of potential breaches. Zero Trust acknowledges that threats can originate from both inside and outside the network perimeter. Infrastructure services often differ because they must run and connect when no other services are available. Infrastructure software like VMware vSphere uses features such as Secure Boot, Trusted Platform Modules, VIB signing and verification, and host attestation. These features build assurances that the infrastructure can be trusted in its current configuration. …

What is Ransomware?

July 16, 2024July 15, 2024 by Bob Plankers

Ransomware is malware that denies access to an organization’s data, typically by encrypting it with a key known only to the attacker. Organizations cannot patch or defend against ransomware in a single way. All attacks are different but it usually represents the final stage of a complex attack by an ecosystem of criminals who methodically infiltrate and seize an organization’s electronic assets. Their goals include holding these assets for ransom, stealing intellectual property, and extorting both the primary victim and their customers. Infection Vectors Malware often enters through malicious downloads, email links, advertisements, phishing attacks, social network messages, and websites. Recently, aggressive worms have spread ransomware using unpatched vulnerabilities and …

Build a VM Template for Rocky Linux 9

August 6, 2024June 6, 2024 by Bob Plankers

While anyone can create a VM template, only a few know tips and tricks for making a reliable, small, and secure VM template on VMware vSphere and VMware Cloud Foundation using Rocky Linux 9. Those tips & tricks are below! Prerequisites To succeed while following these instructions you will need: Create a New VM First, we need a fresh VM. Make the new VM the latest virtual hardware version you can. See “Upgrade VM Hardware Versions” for more discussion on this. Choose the right operating system. In this case, Rocky Linux is in the list. Alternately, you could choose Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9 for EL-family Linux distributions. I create …

Upgrade VM Hardware Versions

September 20, 2024May 14, 2024 by Bob Plankers

There are varying opinions within the greater VMware community about upgrading VM hardware versions. Newer virtual machine hardware versions introduce new features, new guest OS support, better compatibility and performance with CPU vulnerability mitigations, better support for modern CPU features, better security defaults, and so on. Upgrading virtual machine hardware changes the virtual hardware presented to the guest operating system, just as if you placed a boot device from a physical server into a newer physical server. These changes can vary in risk, may require more than one reboot, and may require human interaction to complete. This forms the basis for many of the opinions that recommend leaving VM hardware …

What is Access Control?

May 23, 2024May 13, 2024 by Bob Plankers

Access control is a fundamental concept in cybersecurity that revolves around managing and restricting access to sensitive resources within an organization’s network. It is a critical component of any comprehensive security strategy, as it helps prevent unauthorized access, protect confidential data, and ensure that only authorized individuals can perform specific actions or access particular systems. At its core, access control is based on the principle of least privilege, which states that users should be granted the minimum level of access required to perform their job functions effectively. This approach minimizes the potential damage that can be caused by accidental or malicious misuse of privileges. Types of Access Control Models There …

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