The market for virtualization security products in the Asia Pacific region is expected to jump more than ten-fold, reaching $549.6 million in revenues in 2017, up from $48.4 million last year, according to research by Frost & Sullivan.
Currently, the manageability of virtual infrastructures is a bigger priority than the security of those infrastructures. Security vendors are also held back by the lack of compliance support on securing the virtualization infrastructure and the high costs of security products, noted Frost & Sullivan Industry Manager Cathy Huang.
Greater awareness of the security risks associated with virtualization will fuel growth in the market, Huang said. The hypervisor, which manages virtual machines, is a particularly sensitive security target, because its breach could compromise all hosted workloads.
The market is almost expected to get a boost from the maturing regulation and standards, such as the latest credit card security guidelines for virtual infrastructure under the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standards (PCI DSS).
In a supplement to the PCI DSS, the PCI Security Standards Council offers a number of recommendations for virtualization security, including:
- evaluate risks associated with virtual technologies,
- restrict physical access to systems,
- implement defense in depth,
- isolate security functions,
- enforce least privilege and separation of duties and
- harden the hypervisor and virtual machines.
Huang cautioned end users that deploying virtualization technology in a business environment without implementing adequate security measures could increase costs and reduce agility.
"To succeed in the market, vendors' virtualization security solutions must be able to optimize resource-intensive tasks. Vendors that provide consistent policy management across physical and virtual environments will stand out," Huang noted.
