VMware buys Determina

Virtual machine software powerhouse VMWare has quietly acquired Determina to beef up the security capabilities of hypervisors and virtualized workloads.

VMware notified research firm Gartner about the deal on August 13 but a public announcement has not yet been made. Financial terms are unknown.

Gartner security analyst Neil MacDonald expects VMware to integrate the Determina Memory Firewall HIPS solution into the ESX hypervisor, allowing the hypervisor itself can provide an additional level of protection against intrusions.

Determina's LiveShield, which provides realtime vulnerability protection, could also be used by VMware to shield the hypervisor and guest OSs from attacks on known vulnerabilities in situations where these have not yet been patched, MacDonald said.

"Both Determina technologies are fairly OS- and application-neutral, providing VMware with an easy way to protect ESX as well as Linux- and Windows-based guest OSs," he added.