A system includes an application access manager driver and an operating system (OS) kernel module in a kernel-mode address space of an OS. The system also includes application modules, a public application whitelist, a public application whitelist manager, a user/group application whitelist, and a user/group application whitelist manager in a user-mode address space of the OS. A method includes receiving a request to launch an application, calling a “create process” function in the OS kernel module, calling a pre-registered “create process” callback function to the application access manager driver, and determining whether the application is allowed to execute based on whether the application access manager driver identifies the application as an allowable process in either public application whitelist or user/group application whitelist.
