Did you know that every year thousands of businesses, both small and large, suffer the consequences of malware infections? Viruses, keyloggers, phishing emails, rootkits, and Trojans affect many businesses and cost them in time delay, public perception, and money. Anti-virus software companies make a lot of money out of companies that require a malware solution; however, there must be a better way.

What Can Malware Infections Do?

Malware comes in all shapes and sizes but the all tend to have one thing in common: they interrupt the normal daily operations of companies. Here is what a widespread malware infection can do to a company:

• Prevent staff members from doing any work and being productive
• Cause delays in daily operations because key systems are infected and are not functioning
• Steal the private information and credit card data of customers
• Pass on the malware infection to other companies through email and connected networks
• Cause a negative public perception of the company because data is stolen and systems are not working

Blacklisting Versus Whitelisting Solutions

Conventional anti-malware software typically works by referencing a database of malware definitions that are updated on an ongoing basis. This has been working well enough for some years but the rate of malware infections has increased. In fact, there are new malware scripts coded every day!

In practical terms, this means that anti-malware vendors need to detect new malware infections and then add new definitions to their database. This must then be downloaded by the company. The many steps involved make this method rather inefficient.

Application whitelisting products work differently. A whitelisting application prevents every program from executing except for those on a whitelist. This provides the following benefits:

• Effective protection from any known or new piece of malware
• No need to constantly update a malware definition database
• No need for IT teams to roll out database updates

A Lightweight Solution

Modern whitelist solutions are very lightweight in both file size and resource use. The fact that the software does not need a bulky database definition core makes it light and sleek. When it comes to the modern fight against malware developments, this is a distinct improvement over conventional anti-virus solutions.

The best whitelisting applications work in real time. This means that they can prevent a file from being executed “on the fly”, thus making them far more effective and efficient across the workplace. For administrators, they also provide a central console from which to view data such as file usage, originating IP addresses, and what non-whitelisted applications are being prevented from executing.

For the modern business, ensuring peak productivity means everything in a competitive business environment that is global in nature. In this sense, whitelisting software makes good sense.