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NIST Releases Security Recommendations for Hypervisor Deployment on Servers (NIST SP 800-125A)

NIST released Security Recommendations for Hypervisor Deployment on Servers (NIST SP 800-125A), a report that provides recommendations on ensuring the secure execution of baseline functions of hypervisors, which are collections of software modules that provides virtualization of hardware resources, thus enabling multiple computing stacks called virtual machines to be run on a single physical host. Server virtualization is an established technology in data centers because it enables better use of hardware resources, saves or reduces physical space in data centers, and reduces power consumption and administrative overhead. The approach taken in this document was to identify: 1) the baseline functions that a hypervisor performs, 2) the tasks involved in each baseline function, 3) the potential threats to the secure execution of the tasks, and 4) the countermeasures that can provide assurance against exploitation of these threats, in the form of security recommendations.

Released January 23, 2018, Updated February 5, 2018