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Broadcom Updates VMware vDefend to Enhance Private Cloud Security

April 1, 2025

New vDefend Capabilities Streamline and Enhance Private Cloud Lateral Security Implementation Against Advanced Threats and Ransomware

Broadcom Inc. has introduced updates to VMware vDefend that aim to enhance security planning and assessment, simplify lifecycle management and operations, and facilitate scaling security across application environments. These advancements are intended to assist organizations in developing and implementing security plans for VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF), leading to improved implementation timelines and operational efficiency for both critical and non-critical applications.

“Organizations often navigate thousands of applications to power their business. This complexity makes it difficult to maintain visibility and lateral security across all applications,” said Umesh Mahajan, vice president and general manager, Application Networking and Security Division, Broadcom. “VMware vDefend simplifies how organizations achieve zero trust and private cloud security goals by cutting through complexity and providing a comprehensive lateral security implementation. The latest vDefend innovations further this efficiency by offering real-time security assessments, a next-generation security services platform to simplify operations, and micro-segmentation as code to further improve security operations.”

VMware vDefend is now available as an Advanced Service for VMware Cloud Foundation.

Robust Private Cloud Security Planning and Assessment with Security Intelligence
VMware vDefend introduces a Security Segmentation Assessment and Report through its Security Intelligence tool for lateral security visibility and threat analytics. This assessment provides a real-time evaluation of an organization’s security segmentation posture necessary for implementing a zero trust private cloud initiative. The assessment scrutinizes application traffic, identifies potential security gaps due to insecure network protocols and improper application communication, measures progress with a security segmentation score, and suggests actionable policy recommendations to help organizations enhance their lateral security protection via VMware vDefend Distributed Firewall.

Simplified Security Operations (SecOps)
To establish a comprehensive security plan, organizations need a consistent platform and optimized microsegmentation. vDefend responds to this need by providing updates, including:

  • Updates to Security Services Platform (SSP): The SSP platform simplifies deployment of Security Intelligence and advanced threat prevention tools. The upgraded architecture provides a streamlined user experience, improved lifecycle management, and extends visibility and threat prevention capabilities across large-scale VCF deployments.
  • Microsegmentation as Code: vDefend Distributed Firewall offers a more efficient approach to microsegmentation through an API-driven model, enabling users to apply lateral security during application deployment and across application environments.
  • Network Detection and Response (NDR) Enhancement for Air-Gapped Environments: VMware vDefend's NDR capability now supports secure updates in on-premises (on-prem) operations, enhancing protection against targeted attacks while complying with industry regulations.
  • VMware Validated Solutions design for secure VCF: Offering prescriptive guidance for zero trust lateral security in VCF's management and application workloads.

These capabilities are available today.

Third-Party Validation
VMware vDefend received an Authentication, Authorization, and Accounting (AAA) rating for Advanced Threat Prevention in Secure Element (SE) Labs Advanced Security Test Report, which assesses threat detection performance against complex ransomware threats. A Total Economic Impact™ (TEI) study by Forrester Consulting indicated that organizations using VMware vDefend reduced their cyber breach risk by 40%, cut SecOps expenses by 25%, and avoided a 12% increase in cyber insurance premiums.

“Deep application-level visibility and micro-segmentation for a zero trust private cloud is critical for us,” said Sarita Akula, senior manager, Infrastructure Platforms at University of Arts, London. “In a very short time, we enabled Security Intelligence's application analytics with SSP, successfully segmented certain critical applications, and laid the groundwork for enabling advanced threat detection and prevention capabilities of vDefend.”

“vDefend has been a critical technology in our journey to Zero Trust security for health care applications,” said Tyler Wertenbruch, IT technical manager at St. John’s Health.

“VMware vDefend's Security Intelligence hosted on the enhanced Security Services Platform has become a critical tool for quickly securing our customers' business applications,” said Michael Law, managing consultant engineer at CDW.

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