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Users Debate Virtualization Security

Users, vendors, and analysts at VMworld this week were locked in debate about the potential security threats of a technology that is still in its relative infancy.

Intel exec Pat Gelsinger set the tone during his keynote on the first day of the show, warning that virtualization will open the door to a new wave of security threats focused on VMs.

The exec's comments were a hot topic for the rest of the conference -- no surprise, given that the subject of virtual threats is gaining attention from both users and vendors.

At least one user sees virtualization as a boost to his organization's security policies. "We have been using VMware to solve a lot of our security issues," said David Siles, CTO of Kane County in Illinois, during a panel discussion. "I think that the ESX platform is pretty secure."

The official explained that Kane County has already deployed both VMware's ESX server and its Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) offerings within its health and police departments in an attempt to avoid a data breach.

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