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Capterra Glossary
A whitelist is a term used to describe a list of entities such as email addresses, domain names, applications, or IP addresses that have been approved to access a specific sector of the computing world, such as a mail server, router, or firewall. In the business world, IT administrators typically use whitelists to protect computer networks from cyberthreats or from accessing inappropriate content on the internet. When creating a whitelist, IT administrators often compile a list of allowed applications, sources, and destinations that employees may need to access, blocking any other service requests that are not represented on this list.
In order to mitigate the risk of data breaches, small to midsize businesses often create email whitelists. To create an email whitelist, small companies can simply add client and stakeholder email addresses to a list of approved senders. This tells their email server that all communications from approved senders should go to the top of an employeeʻs business email, instead of being sent to the junk folder. This allows company employees to answer emails more efficiently, improving external communications.