A sanctioned application is an application that is approved by the IT department and meets the security and compliance requirements of the organization. Sanctioned applications are allowed to access the organization’s network and data and are monitored and protected by the IT department. Examples of sanctioned applications are Office 365, Salesforce, and Zoom. Sanctioned applications are different from unsanctioned, prohibited, and tolerated applications, which are not approved by the IT department and may pose security risks to the organization. Unsanctioned applications are applications that are used by the employees without the IT department’s knowledge or consent, such as Dropbox, Gmail, or Facebook. Prohibited applications are applications that are explicitly forbidden by the IT department, such as BitTorrent, Tor, or malware. Tolerated applications are applications that are not approved by the IT department, but are not blocked or restricted, such as Skype, Spotify, or YouTube. References: Palo Alto Networks Certified Cybersecurity Entry-level Technician (PCCET), Cloud Security Fundamentals - Module 4: Cloud Security Best Practices, Application Visibility and Control