VMware announced January 25th that they have publicly released security hardening guides for  the vSphere virtualization platform.  The hardening guides are broken down via the following categories: introduction, virtual machines (vm’s),  host, vNetwork, vCenter, and Console OS.    I’ve read through them and they are broken down well, with brief descriptions of the security topic or setting that is being discussed, along with recommendations with detailed instructions, or links to guides with more in depth instructions.

I cannot confirm this via the Defense information Systems Agency (DISA), however I feel that these guides will play heavily into the development of a new DISA  ESX Security Technical Implementation Guide (STIG).  This is welcome news for those who work in the DoDMilitary workspace. Organizations that have implemented or are implementing vSphereESXESXi 4.0 have been relying on the old STIG, which was written with VI3 and ESX 3.5 in mind, and best practices to secure their implementations.  The subject areas these guides are broken into also mirrors the current DISA STIG checklist format, which leads me to believe that STIG checklists for vSphere won’t be far behind.