Whitelisting made strides in 2009

18.12.2009
When McAfee for its whitelisting technology this year, it was a clear sign that whitelisting is gaining acceptance -- though not all users are happy about the trend.

The premise of whitelisting is to lock down applications on computers and allow only authorized ones to run. In general, whitelisting has a reputation for being difficult to manage because it requires keeping the whitelisted applications fully up to date on any machine using it. On the positive side, whitelisting can stop malware from executing, prevent unwanted programs, and assist in compliance reporting.

With the number of malware specimens rising exponentially, traditional blacklisting methods that rely on signature-based defenses against known threats are widely regarded as inadequate on their own. Various newer types of malware defenses, such as cloud-based reputation analysis, took off in 2009 in a major way. But is whitelisting going to really be worth the effort?

McAfee's whitelisting product, , scores good reviews, as do other products such as Bit9 Parity and CoreTrace Bouncer, indicating product maturity. But the real obstacle to whitelisting continues to be corporate employees who rebel against it.

CoVantage Credit Union of Antigo, Wisc., found its employees strongly objected when the IT department tried locking down their computers using whitelisting technology from Faronics. "The feedback was this was not acceptable," says Aaron Hurt, information security officer for the credit union. "We probably locked down too hard, too fast."