Leading security vendor joins open source project to support and accelerate hypervisor’s growth
SAN FRANCISCO, December 18, 2017 – The Xen Project, a project hosted at The Linux Foundation, today announced Bitdefender, a leading global cybersecurity technology company protecting 500 million users worldwide, is a new Advisory Board member. The Xen Project Advisory Board consists of major cloud companies, virtualization providers, enterprises, and silicon vendors, among others, that advise and support the development of Xen Project software for cloud computing, embedded, IoT use-cases, automotive and security applications.
The Xen Project hypervisor is the number one choice for security-first environments due to its architecture, advanced security features, and extensive security disclosure process. Xen Project code provides the basis for security solutions from companies such as A1Logic, Bitdefender, Bromium, Dornerwork, Qubes OS, Star Lab, and Zentific. Its security process earned a Core Infrastructure Initiative Badge, and has been emulated by several open source projects, including OpenStack, OPNFV, and OpenDaylight.
With its Corporate HQ in Bucharest and Enterprise HQ in Santa Clara, Bitdefender protects half a billion users every day and works with large enterprises, SMEs, government organizations, and private individuals across more than 150 countries. It provides solutions for each customer’s specific security needs, and uses open source technology to address the new security needs of today.
Bitdefender and Citrix created the first commercial application of the Xen Project hypervisor’s Virtual Machine Introspection (VMI) infrastructure. VMI is an ideal API for developers building and monitoring security applications. The hardware-assisted VMI protects against intrusion and malware attacks adding an extra layer of security. It has been used to spot some of the newer military-grade cyber weapons, like EternalBlue.
According to Shaun Donaldson, Director of Strategic Alliances at Bitdefender, “Security insights gained from the Xen Project hypervisor VMI capabilities has revolutionized security. Instead of being reactive to what is occurring, security can be a proactive effort by using the architecture of virtualization to bridge the context gap.”
Donaldson went on to say, “We enjoyed working with the Xen Project as a contributor, and are pleased to now be an Advisory Board member. We look forward to contributing to the creation and extension of security capabilities, building on examples like VMI, within the Xen Project framework.”
“Security companies look to use the Xen Project hypervisor as its architecture can help mitigate security risks through use of sandboxing techniques, security features like VMI, KCONFIG and Live Patching, and extensive security process,” said Lars Kurth,advisory chairperson for the Xen Project. “Bitdefender is the first security company to join the Xen Project board, and we are excited to increase our expertise and practice in the security space to continue our momentum here and expand to other security-first companies.”
Bitdefender joins 10 advisory board members who are committed to the market and technical success of the Xen Project hypervisor. Member involvement includes financial support, technical contributions, and high-level policy guidance.