Why You Need to Consider Application Whitelisting

According to Accenture’s Cost of Cybercrime Study, 43% of cyber attacks are aimed at small businesses but only 14% are prepared to defend themselves. 

Cyber attacks come in many forms but it is the most straightforward tactics that are most effective. Threats like phishing, malicious applications, malicious adverts and malicious websites are all favored by hackers. 

Imagine if you could stop your employees from venturing onto these dangerous websites and prevent hackers from getting into your network. 

You can! That is precisely how application whitelisting works. You’re missing a trick if you are not utilizing application whitelisting to bolster your security defenses.

Let’s explore what application whitelisting is, how it works and how you can use it in your company. 

What is a Whitelist?

A whitelist is also commonly referred to as an allowlist (in case that term is more familiar to you).

NIST provides a robust definition of a whitelist. It is a “list of discrete entities, such as hosts or applications that are known to be benign and are approved for use within an organization and/or information system. It is also known as “clean word list”.

In other words, a whitelist is a catalogue of applications that you permit your users to interact with from their corporate devices. 

What Is Application Whitelisting?

Application whitelisting is the process behind creating a whitelist. It involves creating a deny-by-default policy for applications and websites on your corporate network. You will then ‘allow’ some applications by adding them to the list. 

From a security perspective, whitelisting prevents your users from interacting with malicious applications because they will be blocked. 

Malicious applications are a massive issue in the corporate world. The AV-TEST Institute registers over 450,000 new malicious programs (malware) and potentially unwanted applications (PUA) every day.

Aside from security benefits, application whitelisting is also commonly used in education environments to stop children from browsing content that is too mature for them or isn’t relevant to the curriculum. 

What is the Difference Between Whitelisting and Blacklisting?

Whitelisting and blacklisting take different approaches but have a similar goal. Whitelisting is much more restrictive than blacklisting. It takes a deny-by-default approach. 

On the other hand, blacklisting takes an approval-by-default approach. For a website to be blocked, you need to add it to a blacklist.

It’s worth noting that no one way is better than the other. It all depends on what your business needs. If security is your top priority, whitelisting may be the way to go because it is much stricter than its counterpart. 

How Easy Is It To Get Started? 

Application whitelisting takes some technical expertise to deploy and manage. If you don’t have an internal IT team, you may struggle to get started without internal support. 

For example, application whitelisting involves different strategies and each of them works best for different kinds of use cases. These include: 

  • file size,
  • file-path,
  • file name,
  • hash,
  • digital signature/publisher whitelisting

Another reason to seek outside expertise in implementing whitelisting is to ensure that your strategy doesn’t inhibit the employee experience. Whitelisting is inherently restrictive so if you don’t implement it carefully, you could end up blocking employees from apps they need to use to carry out their jobs. 

You need to take a dynamic, cyclical approach to whitelisting to avoid this. It’s not a one-off job. It’s an ongoing strategy that takes continual refinement and review. A good IT provider can manage this process for you from end to end. 

Finally, it’s vital to know that application whitelisting takes a bit of time to set up. You will need to conduct a thorough audit of your IT assets and applications to understand what applications should be allowed and that takes quite a bit of time. However, we can support you with this so don’t let that put you off getting started! 

How Can A Managed IT Provider Help Me Deploy Application Whitelisting?

We can support you with deploying an application whitelisting strategy that improves your security. We tend to take a three-step approach:

  • Audit your applications to create a map of the applications that employees should be allowed to access.
  • Whitelist these applications using enterprise-grade software.
  • Monitor and review the whitelist inventory to ensure that you and your employees are happy with the solution. 

As well as helping you with whitelisting, we can also review your overall security defenses to help protect you against other common cybersecurity threats. 

Improve Your Security With a Managed IT Services Plan That Includes Application Whitelisting 

Sound Computers can assist your Connecticut business with intelligent and comprehensive mobile security policies that will keep you protected and improve efficiency.

Contact us today to schedule a free consultation. Call 860-577-8060 or reach us online.

May 17, 2022
Sound Computers Admin