I don't know that I'd say VM escapes are an academic threat -- more that they're used for targeted attacks and not generic malware (usually). Xen, VMWare, and

I don't know that I'd say VM escapes are an academic threat -- more that they're used for targeted attacks and not generic malware (usually). Xen, VMWare, and presumably the others seem to get about 1 escape a year that's a serious vulnerability (and 2-3 other ones that could potentially be, but don't seem easily exploitable). Of course, that's publicly disclosed ones, which means there may be more that we're unaware of.