Security of VirtualBox

This is for discussing general topics about how to use VirtualBox.
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vnd
Posts: 1
Joined: 18. Apr 2014, 20:30

Security of VirtualBox

Post by vnd »

Hi there,

a bit general name of topic, that's true, but because I haven't got much experience with VirtualBox I would like to ask a few questions concerning VirtualBox security and I was unable to group them in the different name. :)
  1. How does it looks in comparison to other virtualization technologies like qemu/kvm, xen or vmware products?
  2. Are there any side effects of installing Guest Additions in guest machine? I'm talking more about privilege escalation issues not configuration or user based - if I understand the idea behind the Guest Addions right, it's a software that connects to internal VirtualBox services that works no matter if the Guest Additions are installed or not and are started when the guest starts - so in case of malware or other malicious software there's no difference between the system with or without Guest Additions installed. I'm just guessing that there's no magic switch that turns these internal services on when you click "Install Guest Additions"...
  3. The same question but concerning video acceleration 3D or 2D, are there any security side effects of turning it on? I'm not an expert in virtualization techniques and I don't know how host machines deal with multiple separated environments asking for one device like the graphic card - is there any kind of information leakage possible?
  4. Is there any known methods of influencing host machine form guest system in a standard (or non-standard) configuration? Rather stupid question but some people may call it a feature rather than a bug ;)
  5. Would you recommend VirtualBox as a virtualization software good for running untrusted code, malware, possible unknown exploits or other things that reverse engineers and people related to computer security are working on?
Thanks, vnd
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