Blacklisting

Blacklisting, sometimes also called application blacklisting, is an access control mechanism that tries to keep undesirable programs out of a computer system or network.

An application blacklist contains all kinds of programs that are considered dangerous or risky and therefore being denied access to the system. Blacklists can include very different kinds of items such as usernames, IP adresses or software. They not only contain largely known security threats but might as well include some that are being assessed inappropriate within a certain organization.

Blacklisting can also be a very useful tool in the field of mobile advertising. With the emerge of programmatic buying the issue of brand safety has become more relevant than ever before. For mobile advertisers, this is a good way to control the delivery of their ads. They can simply put apps or websites on such a blacklist and thus prevent the delivery of their ads to applications with inappropriate content. This way, a blacklist can make an important contribution to the brand safety.

Besides, blacklisting is the method used by most antivirus programs, detection systems or spam filters.