Everyone’s talking about securing virtual machine systems, but not many enterprises are actually doing it yet, according to a survey of IT managers at VM World this month.

Over 80 percent of the around 300 respondents to the survey -- conducted by virtual machine security provider Shavlik Technologies -- say securing virtual machines is “very important to critical,” but only 35 percent have secured their virtualization environments today.

That, even though over 60 percent say that they must comply with PCI, BASEL II, SOC, and other industry and government regulations in both their physical and virtual environments. Nearly 35 percent are running a security solution for their virtual machine environments, while 37.8 percent are evaluating options, and 32.4 percent have no security at all for their virtual environments.

“Companies recognize the benefits of virtualization, but are slower at implementing the security measures needed to protect their available information assets,” said Chris Schwartzbauer, vice president of worldwide field operations for Shavlik.

— Kelly Jackson Higgins, Senior Editor, Dark Reading