Protect data and applications from cyber threats, ensure compliance, and minimize downtime with a secure and resilient private cloud built on VMware Cloud Foundation.
Best for
VMware Cloud Foundation is built around Confidentiality, Integrity, and Availability. Security is not an add-on — it is embedded at every layer of the platform, from compute and storage to networking and management.
Built-in compliance controls, automated configuration checks, drift detection, and remediation across your private cloud.
Out-of-the-box support for CIS, DISA, FISMA, HIPAA, ISO, and PCI DSS compliance frameworks.
Zero trust architecture with east-west microsegmentation, IDS/IPS, network traffic analysis, and network detection and response.
Reduce the attack surface without adding hardware firewalls to your environment.
Guided recovery workflows, immutable snapshots, and push-button VM isolation for ransomware recovery and disaster recovery.
Validate clean restore points before committing to recovery.
Stretched clusters, load balancing, and fault tolerance keep applications available during infrastructure failures.
Reduce unplanned downtime and meet operational resilience requirements.
of enterprises experienced a breach in the past year
Forrester, 2024
average cost of a data breach — a 10% increase year over year
IBM, 2024
outages per year on average, totaling 324 minutes of weekly downtime
of organizations not prepared for operational resilience regulations
Cockroach Labs, 2025
Organizations that invest in security and resiliency at the infrastructure level reduce breach impact, recover faster, and maintain compliance with less manual effort.
Identity management, encryption at rest and in transit, role-based access control, secure boot, and TPM support are built into the platform.
Every VCF deployment starts with a hardened baseline — security is not an afterthought.
L2-L7 microsegmentation enforces zero trust security for east-west traffic inside the data center. Policies follow workloads regardless of where they move.
Eliminate blind spots between VMs without hairpinning traffic through hardware firewalls.
IDS/IPS, sandboxing, network traffic analysis (NTA), and network detection and response (NDR) provide deep visibility into lateral threats.
Detect and contain threats that bypass perimeter defenses before they spread across the environment.
Web application firewall (WAF) with OWASP Top 10 protection and global server load balancing (GSLB) for application delivery and security.
Protect applications at the edge while maintaining performance and availability across sites.
Ransomware recovery and disaster recovery with guided workflows, immutable snapshots, and isolated recovery environments.
Recover from cyberattacks and infrastructure failures with confidence using validated clean restore points.
Continuous compliance enforcement powered by VMware Salt with automated drift detection, remediation, and CIS-certified scanning.
Systems start compliant and stay compliant — reducing audit preparation time and regulatory risk.
Organizations using VMware vDefend reported a 40% reduction in security risk exposure across their data center environments.
Forrester Total Economic Impact of vDefend, 2025
vDefend Distributed Firewall delivers up to 50% reduction in capital expenditures compared to deploying dedicated hardware firewalls for east-west traffic.
Organizations using VMware Live Recovery resolved downtime 75% faster compared to traditional recovery approaches.
IDC Live Recovery Study, 2024
Traditional perimeter security assumes everything inside the network is trusted. That assumption fails when attackers breach the perimeter and move laterally through the data center undetected.
VMware vDefend enforces zero trust at the hypervisor level. Every workload is microsegmented with L2-L7 policies that follow VMs regardless of where they move. No hairpinning through hardware firewalls. No blind spots between VMs.
Healthcare, financial services, and government organizations face increasingly stringent compliance requirements. Manual audits are expensive, provide only point-in-time snapshots, and miss configuration drift between audit cycles.
VMware Cloud Foundation includes out-of-the-box compliance configuration guides for CIS, DISA, FISMA, HIPAA, ISO, and PCI DSS. Advanced Cyber Compliance extends this with continuous enforcement powered by VMware Salt.
Ransomware attacks encrypt production environments and compromise backup infrastructure simultaneously. Organizations need a recovery path that guarantees clean restore points and isolated recovery environments.
VMware Live Recovery provides guided workflows, immutable snapshots, and push-button VM isolation. Validation tools identify clean restore points, and non-disruptive testing verifies recovery before switching over to production.
Web applications face constant threats from injection attacks, cross-site scripting, and other OWASP Top 10 vulnerabilities. Traditional hardware load balancers lack integrated security capabilities.
VMware Avi Load Balancer combines application delivery with web application firewall (WAF) capabilities. It provides OWASP Top 10 protection, global server load balancing (GSLB), and real-time application analytics — all from a single platform.
VMware Cloud Foundation treats every feature as a security feature, built around the CIA Triad — Confidentiality, Integrity, and Availability. Security is embedded at every layer including identity management, encryption at rest and in transit, RBAC, secure boot, and TPM support.
Built-in hardening guides for CIS, DISA, FISMA, HIPAA, ISO, and PCI DSS help organizations start with a compliant baseline from day one.
VMware vDefend provides distributed firewall capabilities with L2-L7 microsegmentation, IDS/IPS, sandboxing, network traffic analysis (NTA), and network detection and response (NDR). It enforces zero trust security across east-west traffic inside the data center.
Because it operates at the hypervisor level, vDefend sees all traffic between VMs without requiring agents or changes to the network topology.
VMware Live Recovery provides guided recovery workflows, immutable snapshots, and push-button VM isolation. When a ransomware attack is detected, IT teams can isolate the recovery environment, use validation tools to identify clean restore points, and perform non-disruptive testing before committing to recovery.
This approach prevents recovering from a compromised backup and ensures the restored environment is clean before reconnecting to production.
VMware Cloud Foundation includes out-of-the-box compliance configuration guides for CIS, DISA STIG, FISMA, HIPAA, ISO 27001, and PCI DSS. These guides help organizations deploy infrastructure that meets regulatory requirements from the start.
Advanced Cyber Compliance extends this with continuous enforcement powered by VMware Salt, automated drift detection, and remediation at scale — so systems stay compliant between audit cycles.
VMware vDefend Distributed Firewall can replace or supplement hardware firewalls for east-west traffic within the data center. Organizations using vDefend have reported up to 50% reduction in CapEx compared to hardware firewalls.
For north-south traffic and application delivery, VMware Avi Load Balancer provides WAF capabilities with OWASP Top 10 protection and global server load balancing — reducing the need for separate appliances.
VirtualizationWorks helps organizations evaluate VMware security solutions, plan zero trust deployments, and understand licensing options for their environment.
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