There are some limitations the user needs to be aware of when using this feature:

• This feature is part of the Oracle VM VirtualBox Extension Pack, which needs to be installed. Otherwise disk encryption is unavailable.

• Since encryption works only on the stored user data, it is currently not possible to check for metadata integrity of the disk image. Attackers might destroy data by removing or changing blocks of data in the image or change metadata items such as the disk size.

• Exporting appliances which contain encrypted disk images is not possible because the OVF specification does not support this. All images are therefore decrypted during export.

• The DEK is kept in memory while the VM is running to be able to decrypt data read and encrypt data written by the guest. While this should be obvious the user needs to be aware of this because an attacker might be able to extract the key on a compromised host and decrypt the data.

• When encrypting or decrypting the images, the password is passed in clear text using the Oracle VM VirtualBox API. This needs to be kept in mind, especially when using third party API clients which make use of the webservice where the password might be transmitted over the network. The use of HTTPS is mandatory in such a case.

• Encrypting images with differencing images is only possible if there are no snapshots or a linear chain of snapshots. This limitation may be addressed in a future Oracle VM VirtualBox version.

• The disk encryption feature can protect the content of the disks configured for a VM only. It does not cover any other data related to a VM, including saved state or the configuration file itself.