This is the fourth and final post in a series introducing CoreTrace’s view of the inevitable transition that desktop security must make to a protection focused, application whitelisting solution and how that will happen practically. We believe that the recognition that traditional blacklist antivirus can no longer protect PCs has arrived and that it is time for IT and security professionals to discuss how a transition to a protective system can take place.

Of course this will not happen overnight. There have been significant investments made in existing blacklist antivirus technology as well as the operational processes to support this technology. These processes exist not only to update and manage blacklisting, but also support the necessary ongoing updating of operating systems and applications that are vulnerable to new malware attacks. We believe that application whitelisting is the logical next evolution of desktop security and that there are three critical steps that will take place for an organization to adopt this technology. We have addressed the first two in previous posts:

• Step 1 Protect – Organizations desperately need to implement a system that can protect their systems against zero day attacks.
• Step 2 Purify – Once their systems are protected, there will be a purification process that eventually cleans all existing systems of any infections, unauthorized software, or malware.

The third step, change management, is addressed in this post and has been the single biggest obstacle to widespread adoption of application whitelisting. Continue reading this post…