What is Whitelisting & Why You Should Care About It?

Do you enjoy wedding celebrations? We all surely do. The nicest thing about these celebrations is that these are invite-only events; you cannot show up unless you have been asked.

But what happens if you make such events open for all? Your happiest moments are ruined by unwelcome guests: wedding crashers. Think of your ex crashing your wedding and causing you discomfort in front of your guests, and most importantly, your spouse-to-be.

To save yourself the discomfort, you limit your guests by sending invitations to only close relatives or friends. All in all, invite-based restrictions give you complete control over the event, allowing you to filter out people you don’t want to see or be with.

The same principle applies in computing as well. You can always set up policies to limit or allow a certain group of users to access certain services on the same or separate network. We call these permissions or restrictions whitelisting and blacklisting, respectively.

This guide will walk you through what whitelisting is its types, and the many benefits that come with it.

What is Whitelisting?

Whitelisting is a cybersecurity practice that allows pre-approved applications, email addresses, and IP addresses to access certain systems and resources. It is considered an effective online security measure that filters and accepts only administered-approved components while blocking all the rest.

Whitelisting is akin to employee RFID cards that a company provides to their employees so that only approved office personnel can enter the building. It works best for security and helps the company monitor who enters or leaves the building.

You must have heard, “humans are the weakest chain in cybersecurity.” Willis Towers Watson, a London-based consultancy, backed this analysis in a 2017 report that stated 90% of cyber breaches are the result of human errors.

To put things into perspective, imagine a house well-protected by electric fences erected across its premises. The homeowner has connected its power to one of the sockets in their TV lounge. Now, can you imagine what can go wrong if the homeowner’s 4-year-old turns off the power while playing around? He’d be the weak link, letting all intruders through the fence.

Whitelisting solves the “human-error” problem to some extent by helping the network administrator to restrict access to those services only that are considered safe.

What is Blacklisting?

Blacklisting is the exact opposite version of whitelisting. If whitelisting allows access to specific addresses and blocks the rest, blacklisting blocks access to specific addresses and allows access to all the rest.

Blacklisting is one of the oldest tricks in a network administrator’s handbook. In fact, many security tools like antivirus software and intrusion detection programs use the same mechanism as that of blacklisting to block unwanted applications, email addresses, or IP addresses.

Blacklisting is analogous to an airport security personnel that may have a list of individuals who are forbidden to enter a country. The security authority may apprehend the blacklisted individuals as soon as they are identified. You won’t be able to do that in the internet world, but they won’t be allowed to get through anyway.

Blacklisting vs. Whitelisting

Blacklisting

• Blacklisting focuses on blocking threats like malware, or viruses
• By default, every component on a system or network is accessible
• Blacklisting is useless against attacks like zero-days
• A blacklist may be difficult to maintain because of the growing number of threats or intruders
• Some specially engineered malware can get around blacklisting tools
• The administrator doesn’t require input by users to create blacklists but will need to monitor to maintain the blacklist and add addresses as needed

Whitelisting

• Whitelisting focuses on allowing access to trusted sources
• By default, every component on a system or network is blocked
• The administrator may require input by users to create whitelists (to give employees access to the network via email, app, or IP address, for example)
• Whitelisting limits users to access select systems resources

Types of Whitelisting

Whitelisting can be an integral part of your organization’s cybersecurity policy. However, which type of whitelisting you should implement depends on the purpose it serves.

1. Application Whitelisting

Application whitelisting is one of the most used cybersecurity practices by IT administrators. The IT or system administrator defines a list of known or good applications that are permitted to be accessed or executed on a system. Here, only the predefined list of applications can be used on a system, while the rest of the applications are blocked.

Application whitelisting is an ideal defender against malware and other malicious applications that may make their way into a system or network if left unattended. By allowing only known applications on a system, IT administrators make sure that the system remains protected against malicious tools or apps.

Apart from blocking malicious applications, some application whitelisting technologies may also check the applications’ version and license information to make sure only trusted programs run on a system.

How It Works

Application whitelisting starts with defining a list of applications you approve for a system. You can do that either by using the built-in feature of your system’s operating system or a third-party application.

The created whitelist is not static but dynamic because you can change the applications as per your needs.

Methods to Whitelist Applications

There are a few numbers of ways you can go about whitelisting applications on a system:

• Filename: You can set the application whitelisting program to identify an application’s filename to determine if it is permitted or not.
• File size: Setting the application whitelisting criteria to checking file size is also great for identifying malicious applications as they tend to change the file size of modified programs.
• File path: You can also whitelist applications coming from a specific directory or a file path.
• A digital signature or publisher: This whitelisting method verifies the application’s digital signature or the file path coming from a trusted sender.

2. Email Whitelisting

Email whitelisting is the practice of approving known and trusted email addresses so that your email client skips the spam folder and sends those emails directly to your inbox. To whitelist an email, you must manually add the email address of the sender to your whitelist. In Gmail, you usually do that by filtering or blocking email addresses.

As a product or service provider, you can request your recipients to whitelist your email address if they wish to get continuous updates from your company. There are dozens of ways you can do that. For instance, you can request it through a welcome email that a user sees when they first subscribe.

3. IP Whitelisting

IP whitelisting is yet another type of whitelisting where you allow a single or a specific set of IP addresses to access systems or resources. IP whitelisting is usually done via static IP addresses because if you use a dynamic IP address, which tends to change frequently, you may not be able to access the concerned system, application, or resources.

There are a myriad of cases where you would want to set up IP whitelisting. Take, for instance, your corporate Content Management System CMS, which can only be accessed by personnel through a secure network. What if you want to access that CMS via your home or while you are traveling abroad? You whitelist your IP address on that CMS so that you can easily access it from anywhere and any network.

The Benefits of Whitelisting

Regardless of what type of whitelisting practice you implement in your organization, it will eventually benefit in a plethora of ways. For example:

1. Effective Against Ransomware

In 2020, the cost of ransomware attacks was forecasted to hit a whopping $20 billion by 2021. Ransomware attacks find a vulnerability in a system or network and block users’ access to specific folders—the attacker then demands a ransom to release the access to such folders.

Whitelisting can prove to be an effective measure against ransomware attacks as it can block unsolicited access to important company folders. Only those users or IP addresses can access the folder if they are whitelisted.

2. Protect Against Malware

A 2019 study revealed that 71% of organizations reported experiencing a malware attack that spread from one individual to the other in the organization. Malware is increasing exponentially, and every new piece of malware is a sophisticated version of its predecessor.

Application whitelisting can greatly help organizations fight against such intrusive malware that makes its way into a corporate network due to human negligence.

3. Boost Employee Productivity

According to a PwC survey, 78% of millennials reported preferring using smartphones at work, stating that it helps them perform more efficiently. BYOD policies in companies across the globe may have resulted in increased convenience and productivity, but it has also increased the chances of more cyberattacks.

To boost employee productivity without depriving them of their preferred technologies, you can add whitelisting to your company’s BYOD policies. By limiting employee’s access to a predefined list of websites and applications, you block their access to insecure resources on the internet and boost their productivity by blocking applications that distract users while at work.

4 Common Whitelisting Software Apps

As mentioned earlier, many operating systems like Windows and Mac come with a built-in whitelisting feature. However, there are also third-party vendors available that may give a more granular control on whitelisting applications and IP addresses.

• AppLocker: AppLocker is the Windows version of whitelisting. It ships with Microsoft Windows Server and Enterprise editions. You can set whitelisting on both individual and group cases.
• PowerBroker: PowerBroker focuses more on application whitelisting, and thus, lets you set privilege access to only trusted users. It further allows you to set up activity monitoring.
• Defendpoint: Defendpoint is yet another application whitelisting tool that can help organizations with their BYOD policies, endpoint security, and malware detection, to name a few.
• PolicyPak: PolicyPak is also a great whitelisting tool that offers different editions for small businesses to large organizations.

To Sum Up

Whitelisting is a good addition to any company’s cybersecurity policies. You can use whitelisting and other cybersecurity practices to reinforce your data’s security and protect your network from malware and other malicious applications. However, it should be kept in mind that it is not something one can totally rely upon.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is Whitelisting Safe?

Whitelisting is a security measure that works best when combined with other sophisticated technologies like antivirus and antimalware.