While many people view virtual machine monitors as something special and different, in realty they are just special purpose operating systems. The major difference is that the API to a virtual machine monitor is the instruction set of the virtual machine, while the API to an operating system is a set of system calls to manipulate processes, file systems, perform I/O, etc. To the extent that a particular VMM uses paravirtualization, it begins to look more like a classical operating system than a VMM —and just like operating systems, VMMs can have exploitable security vulnerabilities.
This talk will discuss the myths and reality behind virtualization and security, and look at what is needed to build truly secure VMMs.