Google announces general availability of VMTD

SiliconANGLE reports that Google has made its Virtual Machine Threat Detection generally available. VMTD, which was launched via public preview earlier in 2022, allows users to detect instances of hackers attempting to mine cryptocurrency by exploiting their company's cloud environment. Since then, the service has been updated with new features as well as enjoyed strong usage by customers from around the world and in every industry, according to Google Cloud senior product manager Timothy Peacock. Google says the service is able to find malware inserted by threat actors into cloud infrastructure allowing them to use its resources to mine cryptocurrency, as well as provide technical information about each malware to aid in preventing their further use. This is done, according to the company, without the need for users to install new software such as agents, which is a common technique among vendors. Instead, the service is built into the hypervisor employed by Google Clouds data center infrastructure. Additionally, the lack of reliance on agents removes the risk of it being disabled during a cyberattack, according to Google.