Mobile devices have fast become tools used for various business transactions these days. What many do not know is that these mobile devices are more prone to attacks than the desktop and laptop computers. This research work proposes application whitelisting as the surest way of minimizing these attacks and malware infections to the barest minimum. To this end, a system has been designed to implement whitelisting where only trusted applications are allowed to run while blocking any other application (which may include malware). A detailed description of how the proposed system works has be discussed. A test was conducted after developing the system. From the test conducted, applications that were listed under the whitelist were permitted to run. However, an attempt to run an application outside the whitelist showed a message on the screen indicating that the application is not permitted to run which is an indication that the proposed application is working perfectly. The proposed application is also easy to install and configure and comes with just one setup unlike other whitelisting applications such as Bit9 Parity and McAfee Application Control. From all indications, whitelisting seem to be the better solution to securing these unsecured mobile devices against the overwhelming malware.

Whitelisting application whitelisting.