Blacklisting is a term to describe applications that are not allowed on a network (Raggo et al., 2013). Cybersecurity professionals configure Blacklisting policies by defining the application name, signature (HASH), or behaviors (Raggo et al., 2013). Thus, information security analysts can ban Steganography applications by “Not Allowing” or limiting user access to such applications (Raggo et al., 2013). Furthermore, Blacklisting is advantageous to an organization because it is a protective approach to prevent potential threat actors or threatening applications from accessing the network (packetlabs.com, 2022). Another advantage of blacklisting threats is that it is easy for information security professionals to implement. For example, Cyber professionals devise a list of dangerous addresses or applications and block them in the configuration settings of their firewalls or other intrusion prevention systems (Iwuozor, 2022).
While Blacklisting can effectively block known bad actors from the network, there are some disadvantages (packetlabs.com, 2022). For instance, one drawback of Blacklisting is that it cannot prevent malicious traffic from an unknown source (packetlabs.com, 2022). Thus, cybersecurity analysts cannot use blacklisting to stop all malicious content from accessing the network (packetlabs.com, 2022). Sometimes threat actors can commit social engineering attacks using unrecognized email addresses or websites not outlined within the confines of the blacklist (Iwuozor, 2022). Furthermore, this leads us to the disadvantages of blacklists because it can be very time-consuming for information security professionals to manage and keep the list updated to prevent attacks (packetlabs.com, 2022). Other concerns about blacklists include that they can only protect the network or organization from known attack vectors. Thus, blacklists are ineffective at blocking new technologies from accessing the network. Another disadvantage is that blacklists make it difficult because not all applications or websites on the blocklist are malicious. Thus, it is challenging to unblock a device or network from a blacklist (Iwuozor, 2022). In determining whether or not to use a blacklist policy, cyber analysts need to identify the needs of their organization and discuss the advantages and disadvantages that a blacklist policy would have for the current cyber environment.
