Anti-Virus/Firewall needed on guest?

[DroneZone]

Hi, I have an AV and firewall running on my host (Kaspersky). Do I needed to install an AV on my guest VMs too or does the host AV cover the VMs too? I can't find any info on this anywhere! Thanks, Rob

[Peter_vm · Accepted solution]

AV on host won't protect your guest. Install in guest OS also!

As for the firewall, it depends on type of network connectivity (bridge, host-only or NAT) and suspected attack source location (Internet, LAN or host-only subnet).

[DeafMCSA]

I agreed with Peter_vm's comments.

It really up to you. The question for you to think about how important is your VM? If it really important and you do a lot of personal data on the VM, then the answer is you may want to have AV. If you also surf the web and have personal data, then you may want to have AV and Firewall.

Here is my two cents:

Personal data (Internal, no external data), no LAN, and WAN => no requirement

Personal data (Internal and External data), no LAN and WAN => requires AV

Personal data (Internal and External data), with LAN and WAN => requires AV, Firewall is optional

Personal data, with LAN and WAN => requires AV and Firewall

Just for testing => no requirement.

Notes:

*- LAN (Local Area Network) used for home or office network.

*- WAN (Wide Area Network) used for Internet network.

*- Internal data, defined as any data created/modified/removed in the VM guest environment only, no network or external device used (example external hard drive, USB drive/Thumb drive/etc.)

*- External data, defined as any data created/modified/removed in VM guest environment with one or more of the following: LAN, WAN, External storage devices such as USB drive/Thumb Drive, external hard drive, SD card, etc.

To get the best performance of your VM guest environment is to limited your applications in the background, this is the same as a physical system as well. Hope this help you understand the options.