Qihoo 360 Safeguard XP Shield has managed to withstand an avalanche of attacks

Apr 7, 2014 09:25 GMT  ·  By

Windows XP support is coming to an end tomorrow, so you might be looking already for a powerful security solution to defend your computer.

The Chinese security engineers at Qihoo 360 Technology claim they have developed the best product on the market that can protect Windows XP machines for many hours of continuous attacks.

As part of the so-called “The EXP Challenger Contest” that recently took place in China, a total of 179 hackers and security experts coming from all over the world have tried to compromise Windows XP computers running security products developed locally, namely Qihoo 360's 360 Safeguard XP Shield, Tencent's Computer Manager XP Special Edition, and Cheetah Mobile's Duba Antivirus XP Protection Shield.

Hackers launched attacks against Windows XP machines for a total of 13 hours, with all but one application failing victim in just a couple of minutes. Qihoo 360’s application blocked all attacks throughout the entire contest, while Tencent's application was breached in 57 seconds.

Of course, Qihoo 360’s officials were fairly excited with the result and praised their application, saying that it’s the only one in the world that can protect Windows XP in such effective manner.

Unfortunately for the Chinese security vendor, Qihoo: 360 Internet Security has recently been tested by the AV-TEST institute and awarded with only 4 out of 6 points for protection, 5 out of 6 for performance and 5.5 out of 6 for usability. As you can see, this score isn’t bad at all, but it’s still far from what industry leaders are offering these days.

Although security products will still work on Windows XP after retirement, Microsoft warns that it’s still not enough to stay completely secure, as OS vulnerabilities could still be exploited by hackers.

Security Essentials, Microsoft’s very own anti-virus offered free of charge to Windows users, will no longer be available for download as of April 8, but existing installations will continue to receive virus definition updates.

“Microsoft will also stop providing Microsoft Security Essentials for download on Windows XP on this date. (If you already have Microsoft Security Essentials installed, you will continue to receive AntiMalware signature updates for a limited time, but this does not mean that your PC will be secure because Microsoft will no longer be providing security updates to help protect your PC),” the company said.

Windows XP will be discontinued tomorrow, so finding a security application that could protect your computer should be a priority.