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A whitelist is a security mechanism that allows only specified entities to be accessed or executed within a system. This typically includes known good resources such as IP addresses or applications that have been evaluated and deemed safe for use. By maintaining a whitelist, organizations can enhance their security postures by allowing only verified and trusted resources, while all other, unapproved resources are blocked.

This approach helps prevent unauthorized access and reduces the risk posed by potential threats. In practice, if an application or IP address is not on the whitelist, it is automatically denied permission to operate or connect, effectively minimizing the attack surface of the network or system.

In contrast to other options, malicious IP addresses and unauthorized applications, unknown domain names and inactive resources, as well as potentially harmful scripts and programs, are not permissible entries in a whitelist, as their inclusion would conflict with the fundamental purpose of a whitelist, which is to restrict access to only those entities that have been validated as safe.