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vm ware virtual machines and viruses, worm or other malicious software

William Gaatjes

William Gaatjes

Lifer
Hi, I have a question about the safety of virtual machines.

I use the free vmware player to emulate my old windows xp with SP3.

My host OS is windows 7 64 bit.
I have an AMD A10-6700, so i would also have data execution prevention.
On my host OS , i have eset nod 32 smart security running.
This is a complete suite with virus scanner and personal firewall that i have set to request permission for every program that has no "allow" rule.

I was wondering about if i need access to internet on my VM windows XP and my VM-Wxp would get attacked by a virus,worm or something else malicious...
Could that virus or worm or other kinds of malicious software be able to attack my host OS ?
And possibly bypass my virus scanner and personal firewall ?
 
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Yes it's entirely possible. Although most malware isn't designed to infiltrate a host os from a VM (Via bug in Vmware for example). They are rather designed to attack the OS it is first executed on.

It's also worthwhile mentioning that in some cases the host OS and virus software can detect and delete a virus as it's still passing through the HOST OS to get into the VM software. I havn't done any research on it, but I've had Eset block websites in a hosted VM which isn't running the software.

Most worms would still use networking to infiltrate the host OS. You would be extremely unlucky if you got a virus able to utilize a bug in the VMPlayer software.
 
Thank you for your reply.
Well, i was wondering about it, that i sometimes need the internet to update and look things up. I thought it should be save if i do that as well in the VM WXP. But i am not sure about it. But if i allow my VM WXP access to the internet, it is through the host OS and through the personal firewall, yes ? 😕
 
I forgot to mention that the VM would not be networked but would have internet access . I only have a shared folder between the virtual machine and the host OS. I am however not sure if all the network options of my host windows are disabled.
 
Why do you have a shared folder in the VM when you can install VMware tools and copy/paste files?

I always thought that malware would be constrained to the VM and not the host. I guess a good software firewall will work wonders.
 
To be honest, i am a newbie when it comes to using virtual machines.
I have the VM ware tools service running in my VM WXP.
But i have no VMWare tools control panel found yet.
 
When i double click on the vmware tools icon, i only get a version window. And right mouse button also does not provide some options menu with the exception of exiting and hiding the VMware tools icon from the taskbar.
 
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