
- Comodo antivirus false positive whitelisting install#
- Comodo antivirus false positive whitelisting software#
- Comodo antivirus false positive whitelisting code#
Comodo antivirus false positive whitelisting software#
How does whitelisting software distinguish between unapproved and approved applications? The NIST guide breaks down the various attributes that can be used for this purpose: The second method is a good fit for kiosks or other public-facing devices, which run a limited set of applications and don’t require much by way of customization. The other is to have a system that you know is clear of malware and other unwanted software, and scan it to use as a model for a number of other machines.

The first is to use a standard list, supplied by your whitelist software vendor, of applications typical for your type of environment, which can then be customized to fit. How do you create an application whitelist? There are two different approaches here. If those apps aren’t whitelisted, the rogue departments are stopped in their tracks, and IT will be informed about the attempt.
Comodo antivirus false positive whitelisting install#
But that’s not the only benefit whitelisting can also be a tool to fight “shadow IT.” End users or individual departments may try to install programs on their computers that are insecure or aren’t properly licensed. The most obvious is malware: malicious software payloads like keyloggers or ransomware won’t be able to execute if they’re not on the whitelist. What threats does whitelisting fight? Application whitelisting is a great defender against two different kinds of security threats. It goes in great depth on a number of topics we’ll touch on the basics here. (The term has a somewhat different meaning when it comes to email or IP addresses, which we’ll discuss at the end of the article.) The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has a guide to application whitelisting, and while it’s a few years old at this point, it’s still a great introduction to the topic. In general, the kind of whitelisting we’ve been talking about so far is application whitelisting - that is, only allowing a certain set of applications to run on the protected computer.

And there are of course ways that wily attackers can “put themselves on the list.” Application whitelisting There’s also quite a bit of work that needs to be put into building a whitelist after all, while a blacklist of known malware and attack sites can be put together by a vendor for widespread use, every organization’s whitelist of the programs they need to use will probably be unique.

For one thing, it restricts the users’ freedom to use their machines the way they want (and generally people think of their work computers as “their” machines, since they sit in front of them eight hours a day).
Comodo antivirus false positive whitelisting code#
At first blush, this seems to make security a snap: you don’t have to worry about new malicious code emerging as a threat to your infrastructure because the only things your machines can access are things you already know are safe.īut there are drawbacks to whitelisting too that should be pretty obvious. If you’ve implemented a whitelist, you’ve essentially blacklisted everything out there in the universe except the stuff that’s on your list. By definition, antivirus software can’t protect you against a zero-day attack.Ī whitelist is the inversion of a blacklist. Blacklists have a fairly obvious disadvantage in that they need to be constantly updated to stay ahead of the latest attacks. Many antivirus and anti- malware programs are, essentially, blacklists: they include a list of known malicious code, and automatically leap into action when those programs are detected on the protected computer.

blacklistĪ blacklist is a slightly more familiar concept - a list of things that are dangerous and need to be blocked from the machines you’re trying to protect. However, it can be quite inconvenient and frustrating for end-users, requires careful implementation and proper ongoing administration, and isn’t a foolproof barrier to attacks. Whitelisting is a fairly extreme lockdown measure that, if implemented properly, can keep many cybersecurity problems at bay. In essence, the user has access to only a limited set of functionality, and what they can access has been deemed safe by the administrator. Instead of trying to keep one step ahead of cyberattackers to identify and block malicious code, IT staff instead compiles a list of approved applications that a computer or mobile device can access. Whitelisting is a cybersecurity strategy under which a user can only take actions on their computer that an administrator has explicitly allowed in advance.
