When a hypervisor reallocates previously used memory pages or disk blocks to a different virtual machine without securely wiping them first, which specific security risk does this resource-reuse vulnerability create?
Bypass of network segmentation through a virtual-switch flaw
Privilege escalation from the guest VM to the host hypervisor
Denial-of-service caused by excessive CPU scheduling of VMs
Data remanence that could expose residual information to another VM
Data remanence is the primary risk. If RAM or storage blocks are not sanitized before being reassigned, residual information from the previous VM can persist. A new VM might be able to read that leftover data, exposing sensitive information. While privilege escalation, denial-of-service conditions, and virtual-switch misconfigurations are genuine virtualization issues, none of them directly stem from reusing uncleared resources.
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