A super-shield system for protecting a computer from malicious software uses a whitelist to determine if a program is safe to run. As new malicious software is created, inadvertent attempts at execution of executables including such malicious software is prevented being that the new malicious software are not listed in the whitelist. When attempts are made to run unknown software, the executable is forwarded to a server where further analysis is performed to determine if the executable contains suspect code (e.g., malicious software).