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by throw0101c 45 days ago
> […] VMs are not magically different: they are better isolated, but VMs on the same host still share the host in common.

VMs are not different due to 'magic' but through hardware assist with things like Intel VT-x and AMD-V:

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X86_virtualization#Hardware-as...

* https://blog.lyc8503.net/en/post/hypervisor-explore/

* https://binarydebt.wordpress.com/2018/10/14/intel-virtualisa...

1 comments

I disagree. VMs are better isolated to precisely the extent that (a) the attack surface is lower and (b) the implementation is simpler and thus less buggy.

Hardware virtualization has a strong effect on (b), but it’s not at all a foregone conclusion that it’s strictly in the direction of being more straightforward and thus more secure. And hardware features like fancy device passthrough encourages applications with a very, very large attack surface that has historically been full of holes.