Blacklist (computing)

In computing, a blacklist or a blocklist or a denylist is a basic access control mechanism that allows through all elements (email addresses, users, passwords, URLs, IP addresses, domain names, file hashes, etc.), except those explicitly mentioned. Those items on the list are denied access. The opposite is an allowlist (whitelist, passlist) which means only items on the list are let through whatever gate is being used. A greylist contains items that are temporarily blocked (or temporarily allowed) until an additional step is performed.

Screenshot of a web page of a Wikimedia Foundationproject. Filing a blacklisting request

Blacklists can be applied at various points in a security architecture, such as a host, web proxy, DNS servers, email server, firewall, directory servers or application authentication gateways. The type of element blocked is influenced by the access control location.[1] DNS servers may be well-suited to block domain names, for example, but not URLs. A firewall is well-suited for blocking IP addresses, but less so for blocking malicious files or passwords.

Example uses include a company that might prevent a list of software from running on its network, a school that might prevent access to a list of web sites from its computers, or a business that wants to ensure their computer users are not choosing easily guessed, poor passwords.

Industry trend away from the term 'blacklist'

The computing industry is moving away from using this term, with proposed alternatives for blacklist/whitelist such as denylist/allowlist or blocklist/passlist.

In June and July 2020:

  • GitHub announced that it would replace many "terms that may be offensive to developers in the black community". [2]
  • Apple Inc announced at its developer conference that it would be adopting more inclusive technical language and replacing the term blacklist with deny list and the term whitelist with allow list.[3]
  • Linux Foundation said it would use neutral language in kernel code and documentation and avoid terms such as blacklist and slave. [4]
  • Twitter Engineering team stated their intention to move away from a number of terms, including 'blacklist' and 'whitelist'. [5]
  • Red Hat announced that it would make open source more inclusive and avoid these and other terms. [6]
  • ZDNet reports that the list of technology companies making such decisions "includes Twitter, GitHub, Microsoft, LinkedIn, Ansible, Red Hat, Splunk, Android, Go, MySQL, PHPUnit, Curl, OpenZFS, Rust, JP Morgan, and others." [7]

Example systems to protect

Blacklists are used to protect a variety of systems in computing. The content of the blacklist is likely needs to be targeted to the type of system defended.[8]

Information systems

An information system includes end-point hosts like user machines and servers. A blacklist in this location may include certain types of software that are not allowed to run in the company environment. For example, a company might blacklist peer to peer file sharing on its systems. In addition to software, people, devices and Web sites can also be blacklisted.[9]

Email

Most email providers have an anti-spam feature that essentially blacklists certain email addresses if they are deemed unwanted. For example, a user who wearies of unstoppable emails from a particular address may blacklist that address, and the email client will automatically route all messages from that address to a junk-mail folder or delete them without notifying the user.

An e-mail spam filter may keep a blacklist of email addresses, any mail from which would be prevented from reaching its intended destination. It may also use sending domain names or sending IP addresses to implement a more general block.

In addition to private email blacklists, there are lists that are kept for public use, including:

Web browsing

The goal of a blacklist in a web browser is to prevent the user from visiting a malicious or deceitful web page via filtering locally. A common web browsing blacklist is Google's Safe Browsing, which is installed by default in Firefox, Safari, and Chrome.

Usernames and passwords

Blacklisting can also apply to user credentials. It is common for systems or websites to blacklist certain reserved usernames that are not allowed to be chosen by the system or website's user populations. These reserved usernames are commonly associated with built-in system administration functions.

Password blacklists are very similar to username blacklists but typically contain significantly more entries than username blacklists. Password blacklists are applied to prevent users from choosing passwords that are easily guessed or are well known and could lead to unauthorized access by malicious parties. Password blacklists are deployed as an additional layer of security, usually in addition to a password policy, which sets the requirements of the password length and/or character complexity. This is because there are a significant number of password combinations that fulfill many password policies but are still easily guessed (i.e., Password123, Qwerty123).

Distribution methods

Blacklists are distributed in a variety of ways. Some use simple mailing lists. A DNSBL is a common distribution method that leverages the DNS itself. Some lists make use of rsync for high-volume exchanges of data.[12] Web-server functions may be used; either simple GET requests may be used or more complicated interfaces such as a RESTful API.

Examples
  • For a list of some DNS-based blacklists, see the Comparison of DNS blacklists.
  • Companies like Google, Symantec and Sucuri keep internal blacklists of sites known to have malware and they display a warning before allowing the user to click them.
  • Content-control software such as DansGuardian and SquidGuard may work with a blacklist in order to block URLs of sites deemed inappropriate for a work or educational environment. Such blacklists can be obtained free of charge or from commercial vendors such as Squidblacklist.org.
  • There are also free blacklists for Squid (software) proxy, such as Blackweb
  • A firewall or IDS may also use a blacklist to block known hostile IP addresses and/or networks. An example for such a list would be the OpenBL project.
  • Many copy protection schemes include software blacklisting.
  • The company Password RBL offers a password blacklist for Microsoft's Active Directory, web sites and apps, distributed via a RESTful API.
  • Members of online auction sites may add other members to a personal blacklist. This means that they cannot bid on or ask questions about your auctions, nor can they use a "buy it now" function on your items.
  • Yet another form of list is the yellow list which is a list of email server IP addresses that send mostly good email but do send some spam. Examples include Yahoo, Hotmail, and Gmail. A yellow listed server is a server that should never be accidentally blacklisted. The yellow list is checked first and if listed then blacklist tests are ignored.
  • In Linux modprobe, the blacklist modulename entry in a modprobe configuration file indicates that all of the particular module's internal aliases are to be ignored. There are cases where two or more modules both support the same devices, or a module invalidly claims to support a device.
  • Many web browsers have the ability to consult anti-phishing blacklists in order to warn users who unwittingly aim to visit a fraudulent website.
  • Many peer-to-peer file sharing programs support blacklists that block access from sites known to be owned by companies enforcing copyright. An example is the Bluetack[13] blocklist set.

Considerations of usage

As expressed in a recent conference paper focusing on blacklists of domain names and IP addresses used for Internet security, "these lists generally do not intersect. Therefore, it appears that these lists do not converge on one set of malicious indicators."[14][15] This concern combined with an economic model[16] means that, while blacklists are an essential part of network defense, they need to be used in concert with whitelists and greylists.

An example would be the Adblock Plus blocklist that includes a number of features including whitelists within the blacklist by adding a prefix of two at symbols and two pipe symbols e.g. "@@||www.blocksite.com".

gollark: The prizeraffle™ is nigh!
gollark: Maybe 0s are explicitly not allowed at the start of codes for some reason; who knows. Maybe this is some weird statistical anomaly.
gollark: Okay, actually, that is weird.
gollark: Er, no.
gollark: Could you breed one for me at some point?

References
  1. Shimeall, Timothy; Spring, Jonathan (2013-11-12). Introduction to Information Security: A Strategic-Based Approach. Newnes. ISBN 9781597499729.
  2. "GitHub to replace "master" with alternative term to avoid slavery references". www.zdnet.com. Retrieved 2020-08-14.
  3. "Apple banishes 'blacklist' and 'master branch' in push for inclusive language". www.msn.com. Retrieved 2020-07-20.
  4. "pull request for inclusive-terminology". git.kernel.org. Retrieved 2020-08-14.
  5. "We're starting with a set of words we want to move away from using in favor of more inclusive language". twitter.com. Retrieved 2020-08-14.
  6. "Making open source more inclusive by eradicating problematic language". www.redhat.com. Retrieved 2020-08-14.
  7. "Linux team approves new terminology, bans terms like 'blacklist' and 'slave'". www.zdnet.com. Retrieved 2020-08-14.
  8. "Domain Blacklist Ecosystem - A Case Study". insights.sei.cmu.edu. Retrieved 2016-02-04.
  9. Rainer, Watson (2012). Introduction to Information Systems. Wiley Custom Learning Solutions. ISBN 978-1-118-45213-4.
  10. "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 2015-08-11. Retrieved 2015-08-10.CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  11. "Fabelsources - Blacklist".
  12. "Guidelines". www.surbl.org. Retrieved 2016-02-04.
  13. "B.I.S.S. Forums - FAQ - Questions about the Blocklists". Bluetack Internet Security Solutions. Archived from the original on 2008-10-20. Retrieved 2015-08-01.
  14. Metcalf, Leigh; Spring, Jonathan M. (2015-01-01). Blacklist Ecosystem Analysis: Spanning Jan 2012 to Jun 2014. Proceedings of the 2nd ACM Workshop on Information Sharing and Collaborative Security. pp. 13–22. doi:10.1145/2808128.2808129. ISBN 9781450338226.
  15. Kührer, Marc; Rossow, Christian; Holz, Thorsten (2014-09-17). Stavrou, Angelos; Bos, Herbert; Portokalidis, Georgios (eds.). Paint It Black: Evaluating the Effectiveness of Malware Blacklists. Lecture Notes in Computer Science. Springer International Publishing. pp. 1–21. doi:10.1007/978-3-319-11379-1_1. ISBN 9783319113784. S2CID 12276874.
  16. Spring, Jonathan M. (2013-01-01). Modeling malicious domain name take-down dynamics: Why eCrime pays. ECrime Researchers Summit (ECRS), 2013. pp. 1–9. CiteSeerX 10.1.1.645.3543. doi:10.1109/eCRS.2013.6805779. ISBN 978-1-4799-1158-5.
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