According to The Register, VMware has been using AI to find flaws in its products, which led the company to move to monthly software updates. However, users found it difficult to keep up with the pace of change because testing patches takes time, even with VCF's non-disruptive live patching. VMware's Prashanth Shenoy said customers need "room to breathe," and that's where HyperArmor comes in.
HyperArmor does three things. First, it offers "virtual patching" — blocking attempts to exploit a vulnerability without changing the vulnerable software itself, similar to what VMware's vDefend product already does for CVEs like the MOVEit bug. Second, it rejects any actions that alter known good states in VCF, unless a human approves the change. Third, it adds multi-factor authentication, requiring SSH credentials and a time-based one-time password, to protect against attackers using stolen privileged credentials to access the ESX hypervisor.
The tool is a discrete product sold as an add-on to VCF, meaning customers will pay extra for MFA. It was not created by VMware itself but by Broadcom's security businesses, Symantec and Carbon Black. Broadcom's CA business has done similar work, and at VMware Explore the company also launched AgentMinder, a tool to stop AI running inside VCF going rogue. Broadcom's Infrastructure Software Group operates with at least six teams, using a mix of central and team-level strategies, according to Ram Velaga.