VirtualBox 5.1 - How do I keep my host machine and network safe?

[bitman]

Hey guys. I have a questions when it comes to the network options in VirtualBox 5.1. What is the safest option? I use wireless wifi at my home. I dont want malware to travel through the network and spread or somehow take malicious advantage over the network. I see I have a couple of choises:

* NAT
* NAT Network
* Bridged Adapter
* Internal Network
* Host-only Adapter
* Generic Driver

What is the safest option here?

 

[XIII]

As long as you've taken the necessary precautions to fully protect your host, I believe the default (NAT) should be the safest option here.

 

[bitman]

As long as you've taken the necessary precautions to fully protect your host, I believe the default (NAT) should be the safest option here.

Ok cool. So I use NAT now and my shared folder is on "read" only. Is there anything else that i should check?

 

[SHvFl]

You should be fine. The 2 step you took are enough.

 

[bitman]

You should be fine. The 2 step you took are enough.

Awesome

 

[askmark]

One thing I would add is make sure you have an interactive outbound firewall installed on any virtual PC's that have Internet access. Comodo FW is a good free choice but there are others.

By having a firewall on the guest you will then be able to control where any network traffic coming from the VM is allowed to go. This will help prevent malware gaining access to other devices on your home network.

 

[bitman]

One thing I would add is make sure you have an interactive outbound firewall installed on any virtual PC's that have Internet access. Comodo FW is a good free choice but there are others.

By having a firewall on the guest you will then be able to control where any network traffic coming from the VM is allowed to go. This will help prevent malware gaining access to other devices on your home network.

Thanks for the tip!

 

[jamescv7]

NAT is already the safe and default option since it isolate the IP address to avoid any such infection like worms to jump out on your system.

I don't see any reason to change unless you want to configure something practical.

 

[tim one]

I've always used NAT and I think it is the best solution because VirtualBox assigns a private IP to the VM and with this configuration the VM has access to the internet, but other hosts on the network cannot access the VM. This means that the VM can access the Internet or to shared folders of the network, but if you share a folder in the VM it will not be reachable by other hosts on the network.