Is VMWare a security boost?

[SweetPea]

I'm afraid I know nothing of the inner workings of VMware. I have a few questions.

Assumptions:
1. I've built a virtual machine that only accesses the internet via the poker clients. No web. No email.
2. The virtual machine has no permissions to see anything on any real computer on my network.

Question:
If the non-vm OS of the physical machine that is hosting my virtual machine picks up a keylogger or trojan, does the virtual machine offer me any additional protection?

[Bogglor]

[ QUOTE ]

Question:
If the non-vm OS of the physical machine that is hosting my virtual machine picks up a keylogger or trojan, does the virtual machine offer me any additional protection?


[/ QUOTE ]

I don't believe an infected host machine will populate itself to any VMs running in it; I don't know of any virii/trojans that have that ability (yet).

Keylogging is a different story though. Different keyloggers work in different ways, but most of them simply record every keystroke pressed on the keyboard in a flat file. Whether you're typing your password in your poker client VM or whether you're writing an erotic email to Bill Frist is immaterial.

So I'd say that you're protected for now from the former but not the latter.

[SweetPea]

Thank you for the excellent reply. I guess since vmware is free, I'll give it a go. Can't hurt.

[shahmat]

I think its a good idea, I plan on doing this with my new setup, just another layer for someone to try and penetrate.

[KotOD]

I don't believe an infected host machine will populate itself to any VMs running in it; I don't know of any virii/trojans that have that ability (yet).

Our work servers were just hit with one last week.

[Bogglor]

Elaborate? I'm not saying that VM's cant become infected because they can -- but I'm talking about a specific instance of an infected host server passing its payload to one or more VMs. PM if you don't want it public.