Whitelisting: A New Alternative To Anti-Virus Software?

There are two approaches to using whitelisting security products - use them on their own in place of anti-virus software, or use them in conjunction with traditional anti-virus programs as a failsafe mechanism. Paul Mah discusses the advantages and disadvantages of each.

"I wrote recently on the topic of deploying whitelisting for your SMB in which I spoke with a couple of senior executives from whitelisting company CoreTrace, namely J.T. Keating, VP of marketing, and Greg Valentine, director of technical services. In my post, I highlighted the administrative overhead – compared to traditional, definition-based anti-virus software – inherent to whitelisting, as well as a couple of important considerations for companies considering whitelisting.

One issue that I deliberately sidestepped was whether whitelisting is a viable replacement for traditional anti-virus software. While the answer might appear to be self-explanatory when considering whitelisting as a security product, there are actually two schools of thought on this topic. Let me articulate more on both of them today."