The vSecurity Cloud Edition checks which version of an application has been installed in a virtual machine. Has it been correctly patched? It checks the signatures on incoming traffic to see whether any is coming from know attack sites. Is the user visiting the site making use of an unpatched version of Microsoft's Internet Explorer browser? Such a system isn't allowed on the same network as the VM and will be kicked off, said Berman.

The EC2 server running Catbird vSecurity Cloud sits outside the actual virtual machines it is monitoring, not inside next to the hypervisor. Nevertheless, as an Amazon-offered application, it's already inside the Amazon firewall and perimeter filters and monitoring the network traffic to and from the hypervisor tells it what the virtual machines are dealing with.

In addition to monitoring virtual machine network traffic, vSecurity Cloud Edition can supply auditing, inventory management, configuration management, change management, access control and incident response.

Use of the Catbird application on EC2 for basic discovery and vulnerability monitoring is $100 a month for five IP addresses (or virtual machines), in addition to Amazon's charges; $150 for 10; and $350 for 32.

Add on services are available, such as network access control for an inventory of virtual machines, a real time VM catalogue and protection against virtual machine sprawl, where virtual machines are lost from view but still running on the network, available to an intruder. Basic protections plus NAC-based enforcement is priced at $150 a month for 5; $200 for $10 and $400 for up to 32 VMs. Adding a firewall allows logical grouping of virtual machines for applying sets of policies to them. That service results in pricing of $200 a month for 5; $250 for 10 and $500 a month for up to 32.

In addition, Catbird announced Wednesday the immediate availability of vSecurity Cloud Edition as a product that can be implemented by Internet service providers. There are a few variations between the ISP product and Amazon Catbird application but they are highly similar, said Tamar Newberger, Catbird VP of marketing. Early implementers include ValueReseller.com, a private label cloud hosting service, and Halo FC, a hybrid cloud enabling software company.

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