Case Study: Intility achieves hardware-protected VM master keys with Yubico YubiHSM 2

Cloud-based hosting provider secures virtual machine keys with YubiHSM 2

Intility, a multi-cloud platform used by more than 600 companies, needed to protect virtual machines and customer data from both external attackers and malicious insiders who could copy and boot VMs elsewhere. To raise its virtualization security, Intility adopted Microsoft’s Guarded Fabric and Host Guardian Service (HGS) but wanted hardware-backed protection for the HGS master keys that would be cost-effective and simple to deploy.

Intility deployed Yubico’s YubiHSM 2 devices plugged into servers running HGS to secure signing and encryption keys in a hardware-isolated module, protecting the root of trust from software attacks. The result was encrypted, shielded VMs with stronger key protection that is easy to install and manage under standard Microsoft tools, offers compatibility with Active Directory CA and Linux use cases, and delivers a lower-cost alternative to traditional HSMs.

Intility

Arne Klæboe

Technical Manager, InCloud Applications & Security