Best antivirus for VMware virtual machines [2020 Guide]

Ivan Jenic
by Ivan Jenic
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Are you a VMware user worried about what choice of antivirus you should use? Windows Report has compiled the best antivirus programs for VMware.

VMware is a virtualization and cloud computing software provider located in Palo Alto, California. It was founded in 1998 by Dell Technologies.

Meanwhile, virtualization technologies of VMware are based on its bare-metal hypervisor ESX/ ESXi in x86 architecture. A hypervisor is usually installed on the physical server to enable multiple virtual machines (VMs) to run on the same physical server.

Multiple Operating Systems can run on one physical server because each VM can run its own individual OS. VMs on the same physical server always share resources, such as networking and RAM.

However, VMware products include networking virtualization, software-defined data center software, security management tools and storage software. In addition, it pools disk space from several ESXi hosts and provisions it through smart policies, such as thin provisioning protection limits and erasure coding.

Best antivirus for VMware

1

Kaspersky (suggested)

antivirus for vmwareThis software provides great security for Virtualization and also offers Protection to your virtual infrastructure. It is compatible with the Windows OS. It has everything you would need in a suite and its components are very effective.

Features/Pro:

  • Anti-malware protection and IDS/IPS for virtual servers and VDI
  • Security for VMware, Citrix, Microsoft and KVM platforms
  • Powerful yet lightweight security for XenDesktop and Horizon
  • Works in harness with your infrastructure, empowering its capabilities
  • Perfectly balanced protection with no impact on performance
  • Agentless security integrated with VMware NSX
  • Anti-malware for any virtual platform
  • Advanced network protection & IDS/IPS
  • Lightweight security for Windows and Linux
  • For Windows Servers in Full and Server Core Modes
  • Multi-layered security for VDI environments
  • Avoid Resource Duplication
  • Shared Cache
  • Integration Server for better efficiency
  • Central management console
  • Cloud-assisted security

Cons:

  • Mediocre scores in hands-on malware protection tests.
  • It has high RAM uses.
  • It slows down the operating system.
  • Database update is slow.

    –  Download Kaspersky antivirus from the official site

 

2

Trend Micro Deep Security

 

antivirus for vmwareThis software protects various VMware customers and VMs around the world. Trend Micro Deep Security offers automated security specifically designed for modern data centers using VMware.

Only Deep Security offers seamless integration with VMware technologies and a multilayered protection that can be automated to avoid attacks. It comes with a built-in hybrid cloud security. This software is fully optimized for VMware.

Features/Pros:

  • Automated security, accelerated compliance. Full visibility into VMware deployments and automated security help streamline your data center ops while speeding up compliance.
  • Security for the hybrid cloud. Efficiently protect your hybrid cloud deployments from the latest threats, including ransomware, with virtual machine security that works consistently across the virtualized data center and the cloud. You need hybrid cloud security that matches the performance and flexibility of today’s virtualized data center — that’s exactly what Deep Security does.
  • Deep Security uses a comprehensive set of policy-enforced security controls to automatically shield VMs from network attacks and vulnerabilities, stop malware and ransomware attacks like WannaCry, and detect unauthorized system changes.

Cons:

  • Difficulty in maintaining desktop/laptop agent based security and error reporting.
  • Slow support and resolving of issues.

Download TrendMicro antivirus

3

McAfee MOVE Antivirus

 

antivirus for vmwareThe VMware and McAfee alliance offers customers high-value optimized security solutions for their, private/hybrid cloud, virtual data centers and end-user computing environments.

McAfee has an extensive security portfolio which is fully committed to supporting VMware security technologies, such as VMware NSX, to provide the most comprehensive and consistent security approach for VMware users.

Features:

  • Automation of VMware NSX such as instant policy assignment, instant detection of NSX and SVA deployment on a new host.
  • Extensibility of platform.
  • Capable of steering dynamically to protect workloads using the McAfee Network Security Platform.
  • Allowing security administrators and infrastructures to use existing tools continually to leverage duty separation.
  • It supports VMware clusters and enables clients to automate the deployment of a security virtual appliance to several hypervisor hosts.
  • The McAfee Data Center Security Suite for Virtual Desktop Infrastructure offers a great solution to manage security for an organization’s VDI. Instead of running an endpoint security agent in every of the virtual machine (VM), the antivirus delivers a virtual appliance to combine signature updates and scanning processes outside of the VMs, thereby protecting all virtualized desktops.
  • It is integrated with VMware’s vShield API, McAfee ePO, McAfee Application Control and McAfee VirusScan Enterprise.
  • McAfee Server Security Suite Essentials and McAfee Server Security Suite Advanced offer fundamental and comprehensive protection for virtual and physical servers. Both suites also include MOVE Antivirus with a virtual machine performance optimized protection.
  • It uses the v-shield endpoint together with other VMware tools to speed up communication.

Download McAfee

Which of these best Antivirus for VMware are you ready to get? Share your favorite in the comments section below.

Editor’s note: this article has originally been published on December 26, 2017 and has since been updated to reflect the freshness of the products and software described.

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