Details
vMotion migrations in vSphere 6.0 and earlier transferred working memory and CPU state information in clear text over the vMotion network. As of vSphere 6.5 this transfer can be transparently encrypted using 256bit AES-GCM with negligible performance impact. vSphere 6.5 enables encrypted vMotion by default as ‘Opportunistic’, meaning that encrypted channels are used where supported but the operation will continue in plain text where encryption is not supported. For example when vMotioning between two 6.5 hosts encryption will always be utilized but since 6.0 and earlier releases do not support this feature vMotion from a 6.5 host to a 6.0 host would be allowed but would not be encrypted. If this finding is set to ‘Required’ then vMotions to unsupported hosts will fail. This setting must be set to ‘Opportunistic’ or ‘Required’.
Solution
From the vSphere Client select the Virtual Machine, right click and go to Edit Settings >> VM Options Tab >> Encryption >> Encrypted vMotion. Set the value to ‘Opportunistic’ or ‘Required’.
Supportive Information
The following resource is also helpful.
This security hardening control applies to the following category of controls within NIST 800-53: Configuration Management.This control applies to the following type of system VMware.
References
- 800-53|CM-6b.
- CAT|II
- CCI|CCI-000366
- Rule-ID|SV-237103r802905_rule
- STIG-ID|VMCH-65-000049
- STIG-Legacy|SV-104481
- STIG-Legacy|V-94651
- Vuln-ID|V-237103