What Is a Whitelist?

 By Charles Joseph | Cybersecurity Advocate

 Last update: November 25, 2023

A whitelist is a list of approved items for use or access. This is usually a list of IP addresses or authorized users.

Key Points

• Maintaining a whitelist is a way to ensure that only approved people can access certain areas or information.
• It can be used as a security measure to protect data or resources.
• A whitelist can also be used to control who can access certain features or functions of an application or system.
• In some cases, a whitelist can also refer to a list of approved vendors or suppliers.

5 Reasons Why You Would Use a Whitelist

1. To ensure that only authorized users can access a particular system or resource.
2. To improve security by restricting access to only known and trusted users.
3. To simplify security management by reducing the number of potential users that must be tracked and monitored.
4. To reduce the risk of malicious activity by unknown or untrusted users.
5. To comply with security policies or regulatory requirements that mandate the use of whitelisting.