A virtual machine is a software based computer that runs inside a physical system and behaves like a separate machine. It uses virtualization to share hardware resources such as CPU, memory, and storage with the host system. Each Virtual Machine will run its own operating system independently from others. This will allow for multiple environments to operate safely on the same physical hardware.

Virtual machines are great for cybersecurity because they isolate environments, allowing malware or attacks to be tested safely WITHOUT harming the host system. They make it easy to revert to previous versions, and analyze systems after an attack for forensic or learning purposes. VM’s also let security professionals simulate real world networks and vulnerabilities in a controlled way.

For this tutorial we will be using hypervisors from VMware. VMware just recently released two free versions of its hypervisors:

To start by installing you will need to go to vmware.com (virtualization products)

Click the “download now” button for Fusion and Workstation and it should bring you to BROADCOM.com

First you will need to make an account on broadcom.com to access these free products. Fill in only the required fields and agree to the terms and conditions.

Go to your downloads → After that go to the available free software downloads!

Click “all divisions” then click VMware.

Find and CLICK your respective product (fusion for Mac, workstation for Windows and Linux)

Next download the respective version to your system

Once the .exe finishes downloading, run the installer, click through the prompts (the defaults are fine), and start up VMware Workstation Pro.

You cant do this from inside Windows. You need to reboot. Note some machines already have virtualization enabled by default.

Once you are in the BIOS (usually an old school blue menu or a fancy dashboard, you will need to find the CPU configuration.

For this example we will be installing Ubuntu. Ubuntu is an open source Linux based operating system (based on Debian), great for beginners.

Visit Ubuntu.com/desktop

Click “Download Ubuntu Desktop”

Now download Ubuntu 24.04.3 LTS! Click the green download button.

The download may take a minute… patience is key…

Open VMworkstation Pro

Click “Create new virtual machine”

Now you should automatically be in your Ubuntu machine. If not just click the green “Power on this virtual machine” button.

It may take a while to install depending on your computers specs, but just be patient! 🙂

You are probably disgusted by how your VM looks, being so small and not fit to scale. I highly suggest you install open-vm-tools and open-vm-tools-desktop.

This will allow you to copy and paste between your desktop to your virtual machine, and allow for you to resize your vm window however you like (will fit to scale of window).

→ use the shortcut Ctrl + Alt + t to open up the terminal

→ Run the commands

sudo apt update

sudo apt install open-vm-tools open-vm-tools-desktop

sudo reboot (restart the Ubuntu VM)

Congrats! You just successfully partitioned a slice of your hardware to create a digital sandbox. Before you dive into the deep end of bug hunting, or other activities, lets do a few tests.

Verify Internet: Open the terminal with Ctrl + Alt + t, then type ping google.com to test your internet connectivity. If you can see the packets were transmitted successfully, your internet works!

Do Ctrl + C in the terminal to stop the terminal from pinging google.com

Check Resolution: Grab the corner of your VMware window and drag it. If the Ubuntu desktop stretches and shrinks to fit the window, your open-vm-tools are working perfectly

Test the Clipboard: Copy a sentence from this newsletter on your host machine and try to paste it into the Ubuntu Text Editor. If it works, you've successfully bridged the gap between systems.

Snapshots: before you start running scripts or poking at vulnerabilities, take a snapshot. A snapshot is a saved point in time image of your virtual machines entire state. This will allow you to instantly roll back to that exact moment if something goes wrong.

→ In VMware, go to VM > Snapshot > Take Snapshot.

→ Name it something like snapshot 1. If you accidentally run a piece of malware or break the OS, you can click “revert to snapshot” and your VM will instantly teleport back to this exact moment.

Now that your environment is safe, isolated, and snapshotted, you are officially ready to start hacking away. A sandbox is only as good as the tools inside it, and we are just getting started. Keep an eye out for previous and future newsletters as they will show you:

Subscribe to hear more! Stay curious, and keep breaking things (safely!), see you in the next one. :)