Friend is having to stay with Windows XP after Microsoft support ends and does banking online with Safezone in Avast Internet Security.
Consensus of Expert IT advice on various forums suggests banking particularly would be unsafe as XP will be open to zero day & other exploits etc without MS patches & updates.
Yet Avast Support have emailed him to say Safezone safe to use after XP end of life. Who is right ?
The email received from Avast Support re banking online states quote “it is safe to use avast! SafeZone after Microsoft will stop support Windows XP” unquote .
Also your appended blog states XP safe to use with Avast " by creating protection modules and detections specifically designed to cover Windows XP vulnerabilities and other security problems".
How on earth can these assertions be made when Xp will be open to zero day and other exploits through future unpatched holes in the OS .The very first month that Microsoft releases security updates for supported versions of Windows, attackers will reverse engineer those updates, find the vulnerabilities and test Windows XP to see if it shares those vulnerabilities. If it does, attackers will develop exploit code that can take advantage of those vulnerabilities on Windows XP. Since a security update will never become available for Windows XP to address these vulnerabilities, Windows XP will essentially have a “zero day” vulnerability forever.
Well, if you think so… Let’s see. 
@ broughie
Well when you consider that windows update does a monthly patch Tuesday for all OS versions, then zero day liabilities would always exist for up to a month.
Not to mention there are considerable numbers of vulnerabilities that have gone unpatched for considerably longer than that.
If you feel that way then don’t use XP, it couldn’t be simpler.
Isn’t the whole ATM thing just bogus? I mean, ATMs don’t go out on their own and browse the web using IE do they? Anybody who knows anything about network/computer security would have those ATMs locked down.
For the most part, the actual security threat will be related to browsing the web on an account having Administrator rights. Don’t do it.
Be aware that kernel-level exploits do crop up once in a great while. Not even a “limited” user may protect you from those, so you may need to be a little more pro-active. If you’re not sure about your computer abilities, by all means upgrade to something more secure (Linux?).
No, it is not bogus! Have you heard of “hackers”? It doesn’t happen with just XP, it happens with any operating system.
They nailed Target and other retailers around the world. Granted banks do take extra precautions but nothing is fail proof.
Ultimately the user must take responsibility in the end.
That’s my point. It’s bogus in that the threat affects XP more than it does any other Windows operating system.
In other words, I’m not buying this “95% of the world’s ATMs still running Windows XP doomsday event”. People just need to learn how to secure their systems properly. For sake turn off the file sharing ports!! lol
I knew I had read this elsewhere. Almost word for word. Paragraph 5.
http://blogs.technet.com/b/security/archive/2013/08/15/the-risk-of-running-windows-xp-after-support-ends.aspx
With the end of support those with XP are taking even more risks. As for the “95%” facts don’t lie. Those numbers are from not only
Microsoft but from other sources. That is also why avast will continue supporting XP well into the future. It appears that Microsoft is the only
one who will discontinue support. There is a lot of software available that will continue to function on XP systems. It’s the retail business that
will take the biggest hit since hackers are lining up to “break” the more vulnerable XP. And upgrading will cost a ton of money guess where the
businesses will get the funds needed to upgrade? Answer: us the consumer.
Unfortunately, when Microsoft stops supporting XP, many other companies will follow. I already saw that the new Java 8 runtime doesn’t install on XP. Not that any security conscious person would want Java on their system anyway…
Also, I wasn’t arguing the 95%, rather the doomsday event. If someone can’t properly secure their ATM system (no matter the operating system) then one could argue they deserve to be taught a lesson.
Sadly too many banks require JRE.
edit: Additional…see http://forum.avast.com/index.php?topic=52252.msg1073146#msg1073146
That’s their problem, for relying on Java. I don’t need Java on my system to access any of my banks.
Some companies do the right thing, like getting rid of ActiveX.
Also, with millions of pirated XP copies still floating about in China, there’s no doubt in my mind that statistics have always shown more XP users get infected than anyone else.