IP whitelisting involves creating a list of safe and trusted IP addresses and allowing no one but their access to resources on a given network, application, or system that the administrator wants to protect against threats.
It's trust-centric and an excellent approach to network security overall. However, despite its many benefits, including enhanced security and facilitating remote work, IP whitelisting is not a foolproof option for modern-day businesses.
In this article, I'll first highlight the advantages of IP whitelisting and why it's a force to be reckoned with for bad actors. I'll also shed light on the drawbacks of IP whitelisting and why cloud VPNs may be better suited to digital businesses that have a remote work culture.
What is IP whitelisting
Before we dive into the intricacies of IP whitelisting, let's first understand what is an IP address and a whitelist. Simply put, an IP (internet protocol) address is the unique digital identifier of a device. Just like different houses have different addresses, every single device has a unique IP address.
IP addresses allow devices and networks connected to the internet to effectively communicate with each other, ensuring every single piece of information reaches the right destination. However, in this article's context, the characteristic of an IP address that most concerns us is its ability to identify different devices on a network.
A whitelist (or an allowlist) in cybersecurity terms is a specific list of entities, users, or actions that are considered acceptable or permissible by an administrator within their network. It's a popular cybersecurity strategy used by IT security teams to identify and then pre-approve reliable devices, applications, and entities (such as email addresses, IP addresses, and software applications) that can be allowed to access a given system.
Coming to IP whitelisting, it's the process of curating a list of specific IP addresses that are then the only ones allowed to access resources on a given network, application, or system. Think of it like hosting an invite-only party and making a list of guests (selected IP addresses) who are allowed to come in. As you can guess, IP allowlisting allows network administrators to protect their systems against unauthorized access.
Advantages of IP whitelisting for modern-day businesses
The modern business landscape is characterized by an increasing number of companies moving their businesses online, resulting in almost every single business being a digital business. This shift has led to an expansion of digital systems such as web servers and cloud networks.
Conversely, the rapid digitization of businesses has also opened them up to cyber threats, with reports suggesting that businesses are being hit with thousands of new cyber threats every second. Needless to say, the need for digital cybersecurity has never been higher, and IP whitelisting has quite an important role to play in that.
Enhanced security
As mentioned earlier, at the heart of IP whitelisting is limiting a network's access to only trusted IP addresses. This adds an extra layer of security and significantly reduces the chances of a business's private resources (which could include sensitive customer information, such as medical and financial records) being accessed by unauthorized and malicious users, including hackers and other opportunistic cybercriminals.
By using IP whitelisting, businesses can configure their networks to automatically reject any access attempts from sources (IP addresses) outside the whitelist. Even better, network administrators can further crank up security by regularly monitoring the IP whitelist and keeping an eye out for any unusual activities that may suggest that it's time to revisit the list.
It's worth noting that IP whitelisting is particularly important for businesses with cloud networks, seeing as 45% of all data breaches today are cloud breaches, and nearly 47% of all the information on corporate clouds is sensitive data. It's no surprise that around half (42%) of executives ranked cloud-related threats as their number one worry.
In addition to typical work devices such as computers and mobile phones, businesses can also use IP whitelisting to secure IoT (Internet of Things) devices, like sensors, cameras, and building controllers. These devices, too, utilize a public network (to share data with other devices).
Granular permission controls
Business owners can create different IP whitelists for different internal networks. The rationale behind this is that not every legitimate employee of a company needs access to every nook and cranny of the company's network.
For example, by using IP whitelisting for granular permission controls, a business can ensure that only the IT professionals are able to access and modify the firm's IT systems.
Secure remote access
According to Upwork, nearly 30 million Americans will be working remotely by 2025. Furthermore, a Zoom survey revealed that 50% of business leaders have introduced more flexible working styles over the last two years, and a whopping 82% of them plan to carry this on into the future. Interestingly, a vast majority (83%) of professionals have admitted to feeling more productive in hybrid/remote settings rather than in-office or on-site.
The bottom line, therefore, is that remote work is here to stay, and businesses must configure their security strategy accordingly. This is where IP whitelisting plays a crucial role. It allows businesses to manage remote access effectively, ensuring that only pre-approved devices of legitimate employees can access company resources.
Conversely, IP whitelisting also allows businesses to employ BYOD (bring-your-own-device) policies. This can prove to be extremely handy for small businesses and startups that can’t quite afford to provide their employees with office-only devices.
Compliance with regulations
While enhancing business security is hands down the biggest benefit of IP whitelisting, there are some other advantages, too. Of them, compliance is an important one.
A lot of high-stake industries, such as healthcare, finance, and government sectors, have strict regulations in place as far as data security is concerned. IP whitelisting, by allowing businesses to employ access controls, helps them meet the compliance regulations that revolve around safeguarding sensitive information.
Drawbacks of IP whitelisting
There's no denying that IP whitelisting is a key cog of a company's cybersecurity strategy, but it's important to understand that it's not a bulletproof solution. This section discusses some of the key disadvantages of being too reliant on IP whitelisting.
- Possibly the biggest caveat with IP whitelisting is that it works on the assumption that IP addresses remain static, which, in today's day and age where remote work is all the rage, is an increasingly difficult ask. Dynamic environments result in IP addresses being changed frequently, which makes IP whitelisting particularly tough. Examples of changing IP addresses include remote workers using a VPN for better security or ISPs assigning different IP addresses to their users every time they connect to the internet.
- Furthermore, managing IP whitelists is an uphill task. It requires constant updates, as every single user and IP address's access rights must be properly verified and manually implemented on the network's router, firewall, etc. This would be even more difficult for a large organization with lots of employees and network compartments. It would require dedicated in-house help, which would further add to the costs of business security.
- IP whitelisting is fairly accurate but not 100% accurate. There is potential for false positives, which would result in a legitimate and authorized user (or device) being unable to access company resources. This would not only hamper productivity but also cause frustration among users who get locked out for no reason.
- Cybercriminals are constantly finding new ways to bypass security protocols, and one such way is IP spoofing. As the name suggests, IP spoofing involves a malicious user spoofing an IP address that's pre-approved by a network to then gain access to it.
- The above point also highlights a major flaw in how IP whitelisting works: it's almost completely dependent on the integrity of IP addresses. So, in the event that a trusted IP address gets compromised, it could prove to be a single point of failure for the entire network.
Cloud VPNs: a great alternative to IP whitelisting
As mentioned earlier, IP whitelisting is not only difficult to implement and maintain, but it's also an incompetent security strategy by itself, especially for businesses with remote employees. A better solution for securing remote access and doing so without the management hassles of IP whitelisting is through a cloud VPN.
Cloud VPNs allow you to implement zero-trust network access (which is essentially the core principle of IP whitelisting) by requiring employees to authenticate themselves each time they want to access the company's network. The authentication process would involve entering unique login credentials (which the employee will be provided from your end) and passing additional security checks via 2FA/MFA/biometrics to ensure that any login is indeed from an authorized person.
By having stringent and multi-layered authentication protocols, cloud VPNs eliminate a lot of the drawbacks of IP whitelisting, namely the need for regular updating and the tendency to churn out false positives. However, that's not the only way remote access VPNs enhance business security; they also route all of the users’ web traffic through end-to-end encrypted tunnels, which makes it impossible for cybercriminals to infiltrate any vulnerability and gain access to the company’s network.
Additionally, a cloud VPN also spoofs a user's IP address, allowing them to sidestep geo-restrictions and government bans. This is another massive reason cloud VPNs are ideal for businesses with remote employees, as there may be individuals who are operating from countries with strict online censorship. Furthermore, unlike with IP whitelisting, it's really simple to add and manage users in your business's cloud VPN plan.
It's also worth noting that it can be a good cybersecurity strategy to combine IP whitelisting and cloud VPNs. For instance, network administrators can use whitelisting on the VPN level. This can be done by whitelisting the cloud VPN's static IP address, which would mean that only users connected to the VPN will be granted access to the company's resources. Plus, as mentioned before, the VPN itself would have authenticated the user's identity, so this approach offers triple-layer security.
Check out the best cloud VPNs for businesses.
FAQs
What is the difference between IP whitelisting and IP blacklisting?
While both are network security approaches, IP whitelisting works by pre-approving a list of specific IP addresses that are considered safe and then allowing only these IP addresses entry to a given network or online system. IP blacklisting, on the other hand, follows a threat-centric approach (as opposed to IP whitelisting's trust-centric approach) and blocks a curated list of IP addresses from accessing the network.
It's worth noting that IP whitelisting is more secure than IP blacklisting. This is because it significantly minimizes the attack surface by only allowing trusted entities access to private resources. Blacklisting, however, is a proactive approach to network security, as it's based on blocking malicious actors outright. It's also better than whitelisting for organizations that value ease of access.
How does an IP whitelist work?
The first step is to identify trusted IP addresses that can be authorized to access a given network, system, or service. Next, the administrators must narrow down the set of rules that would define the IP whitelist. Once that's done, the IP whitelist is ready to be implemented.
When it's live, an IP whitelist works by comparing the IP addresses seeking access to the protected network with the ones present in the whitelist. If a match is found, the IP address is allowed access. On the other hand, if the source IP address isn't on the pre-approved whitelist, it can either be denied access (the simplest approach) or, in some cases, as configured by the administrator, could be asked to undergo additional authentication.
An important aspect of IP whitelisting is regular monitoring and maintenance, including being able to quickly add or remove IP addresses, tweak whitelist rules, etc.
TechRadar Pro created this content as part of a paid partnership with Nordlayer. The content of this article is entirely independent and solely reflects the editorial opinion of TechRadar Pro.
