diff --git a/docs/CLI.md b/docs/CLI.md
index eab0b6b7e..20fb0325c 100644
--- a/docs/CLI.md
+++ b/docs/CLI.md
@@ -10,6 +10,7 @@ gulp has very few flags to know about. All other flags are for tasks to use if n
 - `--cwd <dir path>` will manually set the CWD. The search for the gulpfile, as well as the relativity of all requires will be from here
 - `-T` or `--tasks` will display the task dependency tree for the loaded gulpfile
 - `--tasks-simple` will display a plaintext list of tasks for the loaded gulpfile
+- `--verify` will verify plugins referenced in project's package.json against the plugins black list 
 - `--color` will force gulp and gulp plugins to display colors even when no color support is detected
 - `--no-color` will force gulp and gulp plugins to not display colors even when color support is detected
 - `--silent` will disable all gulp logging
diff --git a/lib/blackList.js b/lib/blackList.js
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..b9f381eaa
--- /dev/null
+++ b/lib/blackList.js
@@ -0,0 +1,37 @@
+'use strict';
+
+var http = require('http');
+
+/**
+ * Given a collection of plugin names verifies this collection against
+ * the black-list. Invokes callback with an object:
+ * [plugin name]=>[black-listing reason]
+ * or undefined if none of the plugins to check is black-listed.
+ *
+ * @param pluginsToVerify - an array of plugin names to verify
+ * @param cb
+ */
+module.exports = function (pluginsToVerify, cb) {
+  http.get('http://gulpjs.com/plugins/blackList.json', function (res) {
+    var blackListJSONStr = '';
+
+    res.on('data', function (chunk) {
+      blackListJSONStr += chunk;
+    });
+
+    res.on('end', function () {
+      var blackList = JSON.parse(blackListJSONStr);
+      var result = pluginsToVerify.reduce(function(blackListed, pluginName) {
+        if (blackList[pluginName]) {
+          blackListed = blackListed || {};
+          blackListed[pluginName] = blackList[pluginName];
+          return blackListed;
+        }
+      });
+      cb(null, result);
+    });
+
+  }).on('error', function (e) {
+    cb(e);
+  });
+};
diff --git a/lib/verifyDependencies.js b/lib/verifyDependencies.js
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..25345847d
--- /dev/null
+++ b/lib/verifyDependencies.js
@@ -0,0 +1,30 @@
+'use strict';
+
+var chalk = require('chalk');
+var gutil = require('gulp-util');
+var blackList = require('./blackList');
+var formatError = require('./formatError');
+
+module.exports = function verifyDependencies(depNames) {
+
+  blackList(Object.keys(depNames), function(err, blackListed) {
+    if (err) {
+      gutil.log(chalk.red('Error: failed to retrieve plugins black-list'));
+      gutil.log(formatError(err));
+      process.exit(1);
+    }
+
+    if (blackListed) {
+      gutil.log(chalk.red('Black-listed plugins found in this project:'));
+      for (var blDependency in blackListed) {
+        gutil.log(blDependency + ': ' + blackListed[blDependency]);
+      }
+      process.exit(1);
+    } else {
+      gutil.log(
+        chalk.green('There are no black-listed plugins in this project')
+      );
+      process.exit(0);
+    }
+  });
+};