Application Whitelisting and How Your Business Can Benefit From Using It
In this video, Rocket IT’s Community Relationship Coordinator, Colleen Frangos takes a moment to talk a little bit about some cybersecurity threats that have continued to rise as organizations have shifted to working remotely. But although there are a variety of threats that lurk in the wild, what if we told you the most common attacks are the easiest to prevent?
Does Whitelisting Prevent Phishing?
Take, for example, the concept of phishing. Most commonly, phishing takes the form of a fraudulent email; appearing to be from an authority figure asking you to complete a seemingly normal request. Unfortunately, many unsuspecting individuals fall victim to these fake demands, and click malicious links or unsafe attachments housed inside. And although the outcome of clicking a phishing email may vary, it’s common for keylogging programs to secretly install themselves on personal devices; in hopes of capturing the usernames and passwords needed to access sensitive information. Even worse, should one of these keyloggers weasel its way onto a Terminal Server that is accessible to many employees, a single breach can result in a company-wide attack.
What Is Whitelisting?
So what’s one of the best ways to mitigate the risk of a keylogger program wreaking havoc on a network you may ask? For that answer, we have to turn to application whitelisting programs, such as ThreatLocker. Whitelisting provides organizations with an opportunity to control the specific applications that can be installed and run on both personal devices and servers. To accomplish this, network administrators define a specific list of approved applications. Those that don’t make the list, can’t be run without the administrator’s approval. This makes it far more difficult for standard keyloggers and other viruses to find their way onto company devices.
But although application whitelisting programs, like ThreatLocker, may be an optimum solution for preventing some basic attacks, it’s reasonable to understand that it will take some time to adapt to these security changes. For example, while most employees won’t run into problems when whitelisting programs are deployed, individuals that regularly need to install and test new applications may run find it difficult to navigate around these security settings. Therefore, it’s important to take the time to sit down with your IT department and ensure they find a proper balance between security and productivity for your needs. To address any of these concerns, or for more information on application whitelisting, I encourage you to reach out to Rocket IT at marketing@rocketit.com or by phone at 770-441-2520.