Using Virtual Machines for safe web browsing
This post ( http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/000491.html ) has some interesting ideas about the use of Virtual Machines as a software distribution format. It reminded me of something I tried to do last year in the quest for a safer browsing experience.
My experiment: using Virtual Machines for safer web browsing experience
Like many of my colleagues, I play the role of IT staff for my family and friends. After a long and frustrating session of cleaning a friend's machine from a spyware infection, I decided to explore ways I could prevent her from (1) easily getting infected and (2) mitigating the impact of an infection and (3) still providing her with easy and familiar browsing experience.
So, I created a small VM, installed Windows XP, and tried it myself for several days.
The results ...
General usability problems
- It's "clunky" to see two operating systems up. The ideal for the end-user should look perhaps more like a special browser, not an entirely different OS
- Downloading files in in the VM doesn't mean its easy or obvious how to access the files from the "real" OS.
Security
- Your VM can get infected and could be a threat to your "real" machine or other machines in your home network.
- Instead of a single machine, now one has to be concerned with patching and running AV and getting updated AV signatures on two machines.
- This doesn't help with phishing attacks
Licensing & cost
- Yes, one needs to purchase a separate license for the Windows OS being used on the VM. An Open Source OS with a free license is another alternative (but I believe would be an even more confusing end-user experience.)
- And one has to account for the cost of running AV on the VM also
Recovery
- If you are infected you have to recover using undo disks or copying a safe version of the original virtual hard drive. That's a lot of end-user pain. The ideal might be some kind of very obvious "reset" button that restores the VM to a completely safe initial state (that of course then has to get the latest patches and AV signatures).
My conclusion
Ultimately, I didn't consider this a success. I felt the experience would be more confusing to the end-users and it wouldn't reduce the time that *I* would spend supporting my friends and family. Also, with regard to the phishing attacks, it's still a very incomplete solution.
There's probably more to be learned from the the approach of providing small, role-based VMs but it's going to have to be more seamless, easy-to-manage, and more secure.
Links
Check out this "Browser Appliance": http://www.vmware.com/vmtn/vm/browserapp.html
