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Blacklisting and whitelisting: Colour-coding security

Blacklisting is a common security tactic - information about a known bit of malware is distributed, and endpoint security tools search and destroy. Conversely, another approach called "whitelisting" only permits known safe programs to run at all. It can be a sturdy layer of extra protection; however, the system lock-down that sometimes results can be a pain for IT admins to manage.

10 Oct 2008

For many businesses, keeping computers out of harm's way is a full-time job. IT departments spend increasing amounts of resources keeping out the bad stuff or finding and removing it when malware does slip in from careless users or sloppy adherence to best practices. Viruses, spyware, Trojans and many more unwanted programs can cause serious damage to a computer, or an entire network.

The most common prevention method for dealing with malware is the process known as "blacklisting." Antivirus and antispyware applications, armed with signature-matching databases and resource-hungry scanning engines, look for unwanted programs and remove them from memory and the hard drive when - and if - they're detected.

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